History of Pilgrimage
Going on pilgrimage has a long and respectable history. Followers of several of the world’s great religions have included pilgrimage as part of their spiritual disciplines. For centuries, Muslims have journeyed to Mecca and Jews to Jerusalem. Several of the Psalms, notably 120 to 134, are called the “Psalms of Ascent,” songs sung by the faithful as they made their pilgrimage upward to Jerusalem. You remember the boy Jesus traveled with his family to Jerusalem for the High Holy Days.
Throughout the two millennia since the days of Jesus, Christians have gone on pilgrimages to the Holy Lands, to walk where Jesus walked. Tragically, that impulse also led to the Crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when armed campaigns were launched against the Muslims who occupied Jerusalem.
During the centuries when the Holy Lands were inaccessible or too dangerous to visit, European Christians developed ersatz pilgrimage practices. Walking labyrinths on cathedral grounds became a popular substitute for making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In medieval times, the practice became widespread with a specific routine: preparation, journeying inward to the center, time spent at the center in prayer and meditation, then slowly returning outward, bringing back a renewed and revived spirit (the “boon”). Medieval Christians also developed the practice of walking the Stations of the Cross, symbols within churches that guided pilgrims following the footsteps of Jesus on the way to his crucifixion.
Other sites closer to home became favored places of pilgrimage during the centuries when the land of Jesus could not be reached. The number-one pilgrimage site in Europe was St. Peter’s in Rome, containing (by tradition) the earthly remains of the Apostle Peter. The second most visited site was Santiago de Compostela in Spain, containing (also by tradition) the remains of the Apostle James. Visiting these sites was as close as medieval Europeans dared approach a “sacred center” of their historic faith.
The most favored pilgrimage destination in England was Canterbury Cathedral and its shrine of Archbishop Thomas á Becket, martyred in 1170 on the orders of King Henry II. Century after century, pilgrims journeyed to Becket’s shrine. Their trek was immortalized by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1385-1400), the story of twenty-nine erstwhile pilgrims ostensibly seeking healing and transformation.
Going on pilgrimage fell into disfavor during the Reformation, as well it might, due to the superstitions and abuses associated with it. Yet the essential nature of pilgrimage—making a transformative journey to a sacred center—remained a powerful metaphor for the spiritual life of Christians everywhere.
In recent times, the practice has experienced a revival…among Roman Catholics, Protestants, and even among evangelical Christians. All are rediscovering the transforming potential of sacred travel, of leaving the familiar behind and seeking out places that have special spiritual significance, experiencing these places in quietude and contemplation, being thus refreshed, and returning renewed and transformed.
Pilgrimage has become especially attractive for those of us whose everyday lives are filled with responsibilities and distractions. We easily find ourselves longing to leave behind the ordinary, to travel to the exotic, even if temporarily, in order to see what is truly important. We long for a life in closer communion with God. In the words of Huston Smith, “The object of pilgrimage is not rest and recreation—to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.”
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