Ordinary Eve
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
Hebrews ch 11 v. 13
Glad rags or hair shirt? It is a longstanding ambition of mine to perform at least one serious pilgrimage for the good of my soul. Nowadays, most Christians view pilgrimages as a holiday of self reflection with a Saintly goal at the end: a goal of healing, martyrdom or simply prayer. Historically, pilgrimages were more of an act of penance or punishment. In either case, the long standing concept of humility survives.
Even agnostics have enjoyed pilgrimages although principally through worship of another image: that of art. I think of Brian Sewell’s recent voyage to Compostella to see the shrine of St James the Greater (brother of the apostle John) in Spain. I don’t think he was converted but, for him, the journey through impressive Gothic and Byzantine places of worship, together with a string of awe-inspiring religious paintings was cause enough for humility.
Personally I have been particularly keen on the idea of going, like millions of others, to Lourdes which effectively puts paid to any query over authenticity by virtue of its fame. In 1858 a poor fourteen year old girl, Bernadette Soubinoux, saw a succession of apparitions of a young and beautiful lady who on one occasion, bade her drink from a fountain in a grotto which was not visible. At once water came gushing forth and from that point, a shrine was consecrated and streams of pilgrims have come with countless reports of remedies from bodily diseases. My particular interest came from an old school friend who had tragically lost her mother when she was only 7 years old in a car crash. Her father had two girls to bring up single handedly and as this was my first encounter of a parental death for a contemporary, I felt extremely sympathetic towards her. I will never forget when this friend of mine showed me some photos of her mother and also some photos of a trip the remaining family had made to Lourdes one year. She had two similar photos of the church at Lourdes but clearly in the window of one picture was the shadowy profile of a young lady while in the other, this shadow was totally absent. Whatever interpretation you would like to take on this, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of spiritual mystique that certainly made me aware of a higher order of which I could not be a part but only aspire. And that, surely, is part of what pilgrimages are all about?
Historically, the Christian church believed that if the places or tombs of martyrdom were seriously venerated then sinful acts could be absolved. Similarly, the act of pilgrimage was seen as a penitential rite similar to that of confession. In the early Christian world, pilgrimages with the physical challenge that they required and the humble garb that was worn represented an effective means of penance.
For my part, I would like to make a lesser known pilgrimage, partly to deter feelings of vanity in undertaking the journey but also to maximise the potential for discovery. One I am exploring further is Oostacker, Ghent, in Belgium, a daughter-shrine of Lourdes. It was built in imitation of Lourdes and having some of the Lourdes water in the pool of the grotto, it has almost rivalled its parent in the frequency of its cures. Its inauguration began with a body of 2000 pilgrims, 29 July, 1875.
Another St Patrick’s Purgatory Donegal in Ireland. The legends that describe its foundation are full of Dantesque episodes which have won for the shrine a place in European literature. The pilgrimage was suppressed even before the Reformation, and again during the Penal Times, but it is apparently popular with the Irish today, for whom it is a real, penitential exercise. It seems the only pilgrimage of modern times conducted like those of the Middle Ages.
Are you struggling for ideas for your next holiday?
