The secret of pilgrimage
Author: Dr. theol. Wolfgang Bittner
A year lies before us like a landscape. What paths will we travel in the coming time? "One day tells the next that my life is a journey," wrote the religious poet Gerhard Tersteegen. What long sounded rather old-fashioned has become fashionable in recent years: pilgrimage. Old pilgrimage routes are being renovated, pilgrim hostels are being opened. More and more people are setting out on the journey, in small groups, and many alone. You move as fast as your feet can carry you. You take as much with you as you can carry. The longer you are on the journey, the more you discover yourself.
Faith as discipleship
How about understanding the path that lies before us as our own personal pilgrimage? Ancient motifs of Christian faith emerge: Abraham is considered the father of faith. His journey with God begins when, in the midst of a settled life, he is called to depart and thus to say goodbye: "Go?" he is told: "Go from your homeland, from your clan, from your family." And Abraham went.
There is an incredible radicalness behind this. We find the same thing in Jesus. From his baptism until the end of his life, he will be on a journey. And his disciples? They, too, are called from their families and their jobs. They leave everything behind to walk with Jesus from then on. Faith as discipleship is primarily about our feet. Given the radical nature of this basic motif, we can sense how much Christianity tends to trivialize the call to departure. The gospel becomes a comfort and a guide for those who have stayed at home. Of course, that's true too. But initially, it wasn't and isn't meant that way. To help you get to the bottom of this for your own lives, I suggest four sentences for the coming year.
The desert
First: Seek the desert in life to find solid ground. In the fourth to sixth centuries, thousands of people went to the desert to live as desert fathers and desert mothers. They left society like a sinking ship. Why? They realized that they had to swim for their own lives first. Only when they had solid ground beneath their feet, when they had found their emotional and spiritual maturity through long, testing journeys, were they able to pull the other castaways ashore. The desert, where nothing could distract them, was for them the place where they came close to God and thus to themselves. This call to the desert has not fallen silent to this day. It is significant that the number of hermits is increasing again today, both in the Egyptian desert and in Europe. These accounts show us men and women who broke away from active, successful lives to search for the radicalism spoken of in the Bible. Their very existence challenges our understanding of faith. What can I learn from them?
Radical homelessness
Second: Make room for homelessness and embrace it. For a long time, the Peregrinatio was widespread in Europe, another form of protest against the trivialization of the Christian message. It began early in the Orient and is tangible to us in the Irish-Scottish Church. In their monasteries in Ireland and Scotland, the elite of young men prepared to leave the monastery and go on pilgrimage. Behind this movement was the insight that as Christians, one had long since become homeless in this world. "We have no lasting city here, but we seek the city that is to come" (Hebrews 13:14). This was called "ascetic homelessness." People left with the firm intention of never returning, indeed never truly arriving anywhere. The world, they said, is God's world. People are God's people. But home lies in eternity. Along the way, one finds rest, but one does not truly settle down. And so, many thousands of people, both unknown and well-known, made pilgrimages (especially in Russia), donned the pilgrim's robe as a penitential garment, stayed here or there for a while, and then moved on. What can I learn from them?
pilgrimage
Third: Take the path, under your feet, to return differently. Pilgrimage is clearly distinct from the form of final pilgrimage. In contrast, pilgrimage has a clear goal. It may last a long time, but is fundamentally limited. Pilgrimage has its origins in biblical times. Three times a year, people in Israel would walk up to Jerusalem. This practice continued in the Church. People would walk to Israel and visit the places where Jesus was buried. Soon, people were walking to the tombs of the martyrs. The pilgrimage to Rome, where Peter and Paul were martyred, became important. Significant places connected with the history of a significant person were also added. Why did and do this?
On a pilgrimage, I set out on a path. On this path, I remember everything I have done on my journeys so far. Our language expresses it beautifully: "I go within myself." While I am on my way to the memorial site or even to the grave of a person whom I know to be alive and close to me. There, I connect with that person, experience them as a role model, and also experience how this person carries me along internally. In doing so, I hope and experience how something within me is transformed. I am no longer the same person who set out a few days, weeks, or months ago. Something within me has changed. I am coming back different. What can I learn from this?
The great wealth
Fourth: Embark on the inward journey to encounter yourself and God. Every outward journey is actually a journey inward. The Romanesque church with its crypt touched me so deeply because it resonated with the innermost parts of my soul. The landscape that opened up before me, the music that suddenly sounded from the radio...
What touches us is always internal. Faith sends us on this path, to seek and find this innermost being. It is the greatest treasure of our lives.
I would like to give away two quotes on this journey inward.
“You don’t have to travel across seas,
don't have to break through clouds
and not cross the Alps.
The path shown to you is not far.
You just have to go to meet your God as far as yourself.”
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote this - about a thousand years ago.
A completely different and yet very similar person was Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat and second Secretary-General of the UN (1953-1961). In matters of peace, he was a world traveler. In his diary, he wrote: "The longest journey is the journey within."
Determined to embark on this journey would be a good shared goal for the future. Perhaps we'll meet there. That would be wonderful!
Source:
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote this about a thousand years ago. A completely different and yet very similar person was Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish diplomat and second Secretary-General of the UN (1953–1961). He was a world traveler in the service of peace. His diary contains the quote: "The longest journey is the journey within." Determined to embark on this journey would be a good shared goal for this year. Perhaps we'll meet there. That would be wonderful!
Dr. theol. Wolfgang Bittner is a study director and freelance theologian.