The notion of a pilgrimage is an ancient one, prehistoric even. As long as there have been people, they have been on the move, not always for religious or spiritual reasons, but usually to seek something better.
Since the time of Jesus, Christians have been making pilgrimages. In the 300's, St. Helena made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where she allegedly discovered the True Cross. More importantly, after she became a Christian, she helped convert her son, Constantine, emperor of the Roman Empire, and thus went the Empire and beyond. People make pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago and many other religious sites.
Why?
I think one of the reasons is to try to grow closer to God. A pilgrimage is a "time out" from regular life, a type of moving retreat. Setting this special time aside from regular life hopefully gives a pilgrim more time to pray, to listen to God. The challenges and fun of the journey and the arrival at a special destination is a metaphor for life.
Because while we think of typical pilgrimage as moving through space, from one point to another, we are also always moving through time--each moment, hour, day. In the morning, the day stretches out before us like a road we travel. What will the future bring is often even more exciting than what will the horizon bring. We are really on pilgrimage no matter where we are. In our regular life, too, it's good if we can set aside a portion, even a small portion of each day, for a time out, to talk with God.
The bulletin board at St. Mark's pictured above says, "What will your camino--your way--look like this year?"
Where will you go today?
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