pilgrimage – Communio

Salt + Light TV has given a wonderful gift in doing a terrific story on the ancient pilgrimage trail called in Spanish, El Camino de Santiago. The Way of Saint James. Alessia Domanico is the host of “Discovering the Way: El Camino de Santiago.”

I’ve been wanting to walk the Camino for years. I can think of no other pilgrimage to do with gusto than this one. It may still take me time to plan and go on the Way of Saint James, but I am resolved. You???

As was said in the video, the walk along the long trail to tomb of Saint James does many things but for me it seems to me that its most important aspect is one’s ability to notice beauty, to notice life. Recall that beauty is that theological datum that most speaks of God in a most authentically human and spiritual manner.

The Camino is truly about the Christian tradition, there’s:

a great adventure, go for a purpose: you’ll grow spiritually and physically
an opportunity to pray, to do penance, to be reminded of tradition
catechesis on the faith
an opportunity to learn Christian and civil history
to know your own humanity, that of the other
learn and experience the christian faith
have the goal to go to the Cathedral of Saint James to visit the relics of a great Apostle.

I would also recommend Monsignor Kevin A. Codd’s book on the making the pilgrimage, To the Field of Stars.

Monsignor’s blog To the Field of Stars introduces you to the pilgrimage.

Going from point A to point B whether it is a physical move or a spiritual one is a pilgrimage. Something happens to the person making the move between points. Traditionally speaking a pilgrimage is not a tourist event nor is a undertaken for frivolous reasons. Tourism is fine and necessary but I want to think about a different type physical and spiritual journey not often talked about in Catholic circles today. It is a journey; it’s a path walked; it is a time to review your life. A pilgrimage is time spent either alone or with others on a path to a change of heart, a conversion. Often we take on the burdens and the delights of a pilgrimage to gain a deeper insight into our lives as Christians asking questions about how the experience of Christ has changed me, or where I need to change based on what I discern the Lord to be asking.

Saints have made pilgrimages, sinners have made and continue to make pilgrimages. My own home parish priest just led a very beautiful pilgrimage to the Lourdes Shrine and other religious places in France this past April. Members of the lay movement Communion and Liberation makes an annual pilgrimage to the famous Marian shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa (also here) or to the Shrine of Our Lady of Loretto and the Conventual Franciscans (and the Capuchins, CFRs and Dominicans [to sights related to Saint Dominic] do the similarly) often lead pilgrims to Assisi in order to be faithful to the path set out by Saint Francis of Assisi. The Benedictines of Saint John’s Abbey sponsor a regular pilgrimage to religious shrines and monastic foundations in Europe related to Saint Benedict and the Benedictine patrimony. OK, the point is not to catalog the pilgrimage possibilities but to give examples of current types of pilgrimages and to say that making a pilgrimage is not a dead, outmoded pious gesture. Real, good stuff happens to people on pilgrimage!

One such pilgrimage taking place on annual basis is the Pilgrimage to Chartres by an international group of young people numbering in the neighborhood of 10-15k. Their form of prayer is Catholic: rosary, litany, mortification, acts of asceticism, confession of sins and the Mass according to the missal of Blessed John XXIII.

Watch a most fascinating video on the experience… and the 2009 photo album …and the report with pictures of the 2010 pilgrimage in 4 installments from The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny.