To Be a Pilgrim.... (Midweek)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

April 29, 2015

“To be a pilgrim…. “

 

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote [sweet showers]

The droghte [drought] of Marche hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich [such] licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 

Inspired hath in every holt [wood] and heath

The tendre croppes [young shoots] and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his half cours y-ronne [has left Aries in mid-April]

And smale fowles maken melodye,

That slepen al the night with open ye,

 (So priketh hem nature in hir corages: [hearts]  

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmers for to seken straunge strondes, [to seek foreign strands]

To ferne halwes [distant saints], couthe [known] in sondry londes [different lands]. 

 

Thus begins Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a series of stories put on the lips of a motley group of pilgrims set for the tomb of Thomas Becket in holy pilgrimage.  I am leaving this Saturday on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Nazareth, attending the international conference of my religious order, the Society of Catholic Priests.  SCP is an order for clergy in the Anglican tradition who root their spiritual lives in the sacraments and seek inclusiveness in the Church.  The 10 day conference is set up as a pilgrimage, with visits to the holy sites and liturgies throughout the day.  

 

Pilgrimage is an ancient spiritual practice in almost all religious traditions that uses walking meditation as its chief form of prayer.  Several of our parishioners, past and present, have walked the 500 mile long Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain (one is currently walking it as I write).  Many have been on pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Canterbury as well.  The use of the Labyrinth as a walking meditation was originally intended to serve as a reasonable alternative practice for those unable to travel to distant holy sites. 

 

Changing one’s setting changes one’s view of things; submitting to the inconveniences of travel and opening oneself to the newness of strange things, people, and places is an essential part of this practice. I will be rooming with an Australian priest; most of the pilgrims are from the Church of England.

 

I pray that I will be open to the spirit and find renewal and new focus in making this trip.  I invite all of you to make similar efforts at “stretching” yourselves by the practice of pilgrimage, if only a practice of walking the Labyrinth quietly and reflectively on a regular basis, or periodically meditating on the place in your heart and memory where you have felt safest and most loved.   Such a practice is powerful indeed. 

 

Grace and Peace,  Fr. Tony+