What do you think of when you see the word “pilgrimage?” Crowds of Roman Catholics going to Rome to worship or Lourdes seeking healing? Crowds of Muslims going to Mecca to perform haj? A television series where celebrities followed an ancient pilgrim route in Wales? To us, it is a spiritual discipline that many Christians of all kinds have found valuable over the last 2,000 years.
So, what is pilgrimage? Making a journey to a particular place is usually the obvious activity, but the difference between a tourist and a pilgrim is whether we are taking the time out specifically to seek God. It involves some kind of journey but, as Thomas Merton wrote, “Our real journey in life is interior.”
We have always loved walking - in fact our first date, in 1980, was a walk in the Shropshire Hills - and we have found that reflecting and praying come naturally and easily when we are walking. Most of our walks are prayer walks. But over the years we have done a few longer distance walks over three, four or five days, carrying all we needed in rucksacks, with the intention of seeking God through the rhythm of walking. Of course, appreciating the landscape is also a key part of the worship and enjoyment!
We recently returned from some time in Greece, travelling by rail and ferries. Flying would have been quicker and cheaper but we wanted to pace the journey, enjoy the scenery from trains and the conversations with strangers on trains and ferries (also mindful of the harm caused to the environment by flying).
We loved the sightseeing and swimming in the Aegean. But our main objective was to spend a week on Patmos, the island where the apostle John saw and recorded the Revelation. It was both a holiday and a pilgrimage.
Although a small island, Patmos has several Orthodox monasteries. Also, at almost every turn there is a small chapel, built on the site where a monk or nun lived and prayed sometime during the last 19 centuries. These days there is mixture in the spirituality currently practised on Patmos, but it was inspiring to echo the worship and prayer of some of the earliest Jesus followers as we witnessed evidence of their faith from ancient times. This provoked a challenge to reflect on any mixture in our own lives and ways of worship and “doing church.”
Any pilgrimage can be subject to delay or change for practical reasons, e.g. storms at sea! But consciously being open to change, especially on a journey seeking God, opens our hearts and minds to see our own shortcomings more clearly.
Whether or not we make a physical journey let’s be intentional about setting time aside, to give ourselves to prayer, reflection, fasting, silence and so on for a set period, to encounter God.
It is encountering Him, rather than just practicing spiritual disciplines to achieve a result, that is the pathway to revival.
- Catherine and Chris Horton