PILGRIMAGE AS PART OF CHRISTIAN CULTURE

Pilgrimage is defined as a journey to sacred places that are inspired by religious devotion. The place that is visited is usually where events have happened in the past that are relevant or important to what the pilgrim believes. Pilgrimages did not begin with the Christian era. From time immemorial, people have designated certain places as being more sacred than other places. They have made it a practice to visit these places, believing that they can obtain special advantages in so doing. There is much evidence that speaks to this ancient practice. For example, at the foot of Greece’s Mount Parnassus is Delphi, which the Greeks thought was the centre of the earth. Pilgrims for centuries had been frequenting this sight to drink from its sacred spring and to worship the serpent daughter of Mother Earth, Python, who was believed to live in a nearby cave.

The Old Testament people would be influenced by the experiences of earlier times and traditions as they developed their own pilgrimage sites. Bethel, the site where Jacob had his struggle with God, became one such site. In the later tradition, Jerusalem became the focal point for pilgrimages as the temple was where the Arc of the Covenant was housed and was understood to be the dwelling place of God.

Within the Christian era, the understanding and practice of pilgrimage shifted in one significant way: it was not seen as a duty but rather as a means for spiritual growth. The Church has encouraged pilgrimages down through the centuries of the Christian era. There are two focal points for the Christian pilgrim: sites relating to the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth; and sites relating to Mary, the mother of Jesus and the Saints.

The first pilgrims wanted to trace the footsteps of Jesus, the Lord: persons like Milito of Sardis (160), Basil the Great of Caesarea (351), and Jerome (386), to name a few. The pilgrim relived the life of Jesus through visiting the places where he lived. This sense is liturgical and is related to the Hebrew word hag, which means ‘keeping festival’ or literally ‘going in a circle’. The pilgrim had a strong sense that this earthly life was not the final destination but rather the movement towards the more profound heavenly life. And so, the leaving or cutting off of ties with the earthly existence (home, family, work, etc) to journey towards something more spiritual. This sense is related to the other Hebrew words associated with pilgrimage: gurand yasab – meaning ‘sojourn’ and ‘live as a stranger’. This practice of “walking in the footsteps of Jesus” would lead to the celebrating of the Sunday Liturgies around the events in the life of Jesus – the formation of the Liturgical Calendar. The birth of processions and marches, especially on certain feasts, allowed the average Christian who could not go to the Holy Land to have a sense of pilgrimage.

In the later Christian tradition, pilgrimage sites grew up around the apparitions of the Blessed Mother: Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, to name two of the more popular ones. Then there are pilgrimage sites centred around the lives of saints: St. Anthony of Padua, St Padre Pio, St Mother Teresa of Calcutta, St Martin de Pores, St Rose of Lima, etc. The pilgrimage sites connected to the apparitions of the Blessed Mother and the saints encourage pilgrims to deepen their commitment to discipleship in Christ, which would lead to a life of communion with God.

– Bishop John D. Persaud