Pilgrimages carry us in the footsteps of the Teacher

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

In a little over a week (Feb. 6), we will begin the journey of Lent. In this week's Gospel (Mt 4:12-23), we hear of Jesus beginning his journey of ministry by moving to Capernaum, which is by the Sea of Galilee. Shortly afterwards, he called the first of his apostles - Peter and Andrew, who were fishermen by the sea.

	Pilgrimage parts
	For Christians, pilgrimages involve at least five parts: • A journey of some sort to a sacred place is involved, even if it is only around a church to stop at each Station of the Cross; • Prayer; • A sense of repentance or longing for conversion of heart; • Trust in the presence and action of God; • A return to the world to continue the work of Jesus.

The journey of Lent is a pilgrimage, emphasizing for 40 days what is our lifelong pilgrimage of faith. In 2004, the Vatican's Pontifical Council on the Care of Migrants and Itinerant People wrote that, "Faith reminds us how we are all pilgrims on our way towards our true homeland. 'Christian life is essentially a living through the Passover with Christ, or a journey, a sublime migration towards total Communion of the Kingdom of God' (CMU 10)" (no. 101).

While we are all on a pilgrimage, there are certain times when we make a special pilgrimage to a certain spot. While some people might consider a trip to Lambeau Field a pilgrimage, most pilgrimages are to religious sites. Pilgrimages are not exclusive to Christians. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks made pilgrimages to their sacred sites of Thebes or Delphi; modern Jews fervently pray each New Year to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the near future; Muslims are required to make one pilgrim trip to Mecca during their lifetimes.

For Christians, a pilgrimage somehow follows in the footsteps of Christ, who journeyed through Galilee into Judea and on to Jerusalem and the cross.

Not surprisingly, the first Christian pilgrimages followed these same steps, visiting the holy sites of the Lord's passion, death and resurrection in Jerusalem. The writings of the anonymous Bordeaux Pilgrim, which date to 333 A.D., mention such sites as Gethsemane and Golgotha.

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land continued through the first centuries of the church. However, around the turn of the first millennium, friction between Muslims and the church - including the Crusaders - made pilgrimages unsafe. Alternative sites of pilgrimages had already been founded - centered around the lives of various saints - including the famous shrine of Campostella in Spain, associated with the Apostle James, and Rome.

One of the traditional emblems of a Christian pilgrim is the scallop shell - which is also a symbol of John the Baptist. It first developed around the shrine of St. James in Spain, due to a pious legend about the saint saving a young man from drowning in the sea near the site. Medieval pilgrims were supposed to beg on their way and the scallop shell came to be their tool for begging. The shell held the amount of water or food they were allowed to ask for at any place where they stopped.

Since people could not safely travel to the sites of the Way of the Cross, various churches, especially in Rome, were designated as stational churches and served as alternative destinations for those who could not reach specific sites in the Holy Land. Similarly, the Stations of the Cross developed as a way for those who could not journey to the Holy Land to still be able to follow Christ's steps to the cross. Today, Lent is a time when many parishes hold times for the Stations of the Cross - most often on Fridays, the day the Lord died. However, anyone can pray the stations privately, as a personal devotion.

During his life, there were times when Jesus went away by himself to pray. He taught the disciples to do the same. One of the greatest examples of this was the Transfiguration, which we will hear about on the Second Sunday of Lent (Mt 17:1-7). This journey up - and back down - a mountain is a model for all Christian pilgrims.