Pilgrim’s Progress

One of the wisest men I’ve ever met is Father Matthew Kelty, a monk at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. I have been thinking lately of one of the many lessons I learned from him. Paraphrasing his words, tourists travel from their center of meaning, their psychic home, to visit some site on the periphery. In contrast, pilgrims travel from the periphery, even if it is their address, to their spiritual or psychic center of meaning.

I observed the distinction at close range when my wife and I were blessed to be able to take students every other year to Italy. Two of the cities we visited and explored were Rome and Assisi. In both those cities, we were surrounded by tourists, visitors who stopped at all the famous sites to ooh and ah. But we were also often in a crowd of pilgrims for whom Rome and Assisi were sites of spiritual importance. Tourists take pictures. Pilgrims might take pictures, but they also stop to reflect and pray, sometimes on their knees.

We had the same mix of tourists and pilgrims in our group of students. For some, Italy was a place to experience the joys and challenges of another culture. Perhaps they viewed Italy as a country on their bucket lists, and they brought home photos and souvenirs to remember the experience by. For other students, Rome and Assisi were spiritual destinations, places where they could visit the roots of their faith. Pilgrims also bring home photos and souvenirs, but more importantly, they bring back a change of heart.

What intrigued me were the students who came as tourists and ended up becoming pilgrims. One student stands out in my wife’s and my memories. He was a college athlete and a jokester who gave all the signs of coming on the trip for a good time. One of our rules for the group was that students had to be up and alert for our educational tours in the morning. That didn’t keep him from enjoying the bars in Rome during our stay there.

Something changed when we were in Assisi, the home of St. Francis. We visited the church where St. Francis heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him from a cross, saying, “Rebuild my Church.” Soon after, we visited the multi-level basilica where St. Francis is buried. We sat in silence in the lower church, near the tomb, surrounded by pilgrims praying. That was when this student whispered to my wife, “I could stay here forever.”

I am sure that millions of pilgrims to Jerusalem, Mecca, the Ganges River, and Monument Valley have thought and said the same thing. They have set off on a journey not “from home,” but to “find home.” When a journey presents difficulties, tourists might complain. Pilgrims know that difficulties and challenges are part of the experience, a sacrifice they are willing to endure to find home.

Pilgrimages don’t have to be religious journeys, though I believe every pilgrimage is a spiritual experience. If you haven’t seen the movie “The Straight Story” starring Richard Farnsworth, I recommend it. Because the journey unfolds so slowly, this film isn’t easy to watch, but the slow pace is part of the experience both for Farnsworth and for us, the viewers.

I admit, however, that not everyone can accept Father Kelty’s distinction between the tourist and the pilgrim. One of the saddest conversations that I’ve ever had occurred nearly thirty years ago, when a young man looked me in the eye and declared that he couldn’t understand the concept of pilgrimage because his center of meaning was himself. “Home” was himself.

If this now middle-aged man still believes that, then he’s never yearned for meaning beyond himself. As I said, that is so sad.

Bucket list