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The Southern Cross, Paee 8
Thursday, February 3, 2000
The jubilee journey:
Inward and outward
All contents copyright©2000 by CNS
jC
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Dolores R. Leckey
Catholic News Service
pervasive and apt motif for
Christian life and faith is that of the
pilgrimage, or journey.
The great spiritual leaders of cen
turies past knew that the most ardu
ous and demanding journey of all is
the journey inward. It is also the most
exciting.
It is a journey with the capacity to
change a person in some significant
way. And because everything is con
nected, this sacred journey is about
more than personal enrichment. It
also has to do with transforming the
social order.
When I think of the journey inward
I often am drawn to William Blake’s
drawing of the pilgrims of Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales. It is sunrise in the
painting, and the pilgrims are gather
ing in a courtyard, some mounted and
some clearly ready to journey by foot.
The nun is there, as is the parson and
the wife of Bath.
This odd assortment will be en
route shortly, bound for the sacred
site. Along the way they will share
their stories, some more obviously in
spiring than others, but all with a
point to make about the journey ip-
ward. The drawing suggests, too, that
ample provisions have been stowed for
the journey.
A critical question for anyone un
dertaking the journey inward, then, is
precisely what provisions are needed.
Several are immediately evident.
■ ■ ■
No one would begin a journey of
any significance without some kind of
guide. Adventurers do not dare
jungles, or deserts, or the most chal
lenging mountain peaks without
maps or, preferably, a human guide.
So, too, with the interior journey,
which is not always smooth and
straight. A guide or mentor can make
all the difference in whether one per
severes on the journey of prayer and
solidarity.
tually baked. Women work all day in
severe heat, inhaling soot, their hands
aching from their labors.
But they are happy. They, at least,
have work, and they have bread at the
end of the day to feed their families.
And for a number of hours each day ,
they are warm.
Before, some of these women were
nurses or teachers with a life not un
like mine. And then, in a short period
of time, everything changed. I cannot
read of their struggles without feeling
that I am part of their pilgrimage —
that in some way that I cannot fully
understand, we belong to one another.
All I have to offer them now are my
prayers and my words to tell their
story.
I can’t help but think that Christ is
surely in the bread they bake, and
break and share with those even less
fortunate than they.
The hope that will not die in these
women enlarges my small world, and
nourishes my part of the human
family’s overall pilgrimage.
(Dolores Leckey is a senior fellow
at the Woodstock Theological Center, '
Georgetown University, and the au
thor of “Essentials for the Spiritual
Journey,” Crossroad, 1999.)
Trustworthy spiritual guides are
those men and women who them
selves have traversed the spiritual
pathway with its ascents and de
scents, and come out onto a plateau
where God’s presence is discernible.
Another essential is surely some
kind of lens to see the sacred in the
ordinary. Poets and mystics under
—The single winter flower shel
tered in a stone wall.
—The salad you’re preparing.
—Geese in flight.
Among other essentials for this
journey is authentic community,
characterized by respect, interdepen
dence, equality and shared values and
goals.
ever-present severity. Days are taken
up with waiting on line for bread dis
tributed by the United Nations, the
main sustenance for families without
money, without work, without
warmth.
Firewood and bread are the main
stays of life for today’s Afghans. The
end of the account I read described the
bakeries where the relief bread is ac- '
CNS photo of pilgrims on hillside overlooking Sea of Galilee by The Crosiers/Gene Plaisted
stand that every particular is a win
dow onto the universal, the glory of
God.
How does one develop the capacity
to see what is always there? Attentive
ness is the key. Concentrate on what
is at hand:
While the Canterbury pilgrims
were not totally of one mind regarding
values, they did listen to each other’s
stories with attention and even re
spect. They knew that safe arrival at
their destination required a certain
unanimity.
In our own time, Christians have
gathered in a variety of small commu
nities — contemporary pilgrims sup
porting each other on the inward jour
ney. These small faith communities
listen to and ponder the word of God,
pray with and for each other, and try
to be attentive to God’s call to mission
both individually and corporately.
■ ■ ■
The journey inward, with its ever
deepening consciousness of God’s Holy
Spirit, creates a thirst for justice
while it prompts one to compassionate
care for some segment of human need.
The Christian inner pilgrimage calls
one to journey toward human solidar
ity and mercy.
Twenty-first century global aware
ness can and does draw us into hu
man situations so different and so
needy that one can experience a cul
tural Passover.
I recently read an account of life in
Kabul in Afghanistan since the
Taliban takeover. Winter adds to the
“In our own time, Christians have gathered in a
variety of small communities — contemporary
pilgrims supporting each other on the inward
journey. These small faith communities listen to
and ponder the word of God, pray with and for
each other, and try to be attentive to God’s call to
mission both individually and corporately.”
The human being is a born traveler of a certain kind.
In a 1998 document on “pilgrimage,” the Pontifical Council for
Migrants and Travelers described the human person — even in secular
history — as “a traveler thirsty for new horizons, hungry for justice and
peace, searching for truth, longing for love, open to the absolute and the
infinite.”
Religious pilgrimages undertaken in Christian history “in the desert or
toward a holy place” served as a symbol for “another pilgrimage, the
interior one,” said the pontifical council. Also:
“The great questions on the meaning of existence, on life, on death, on
the ultimate destiny of the human person must resound in the heart of
the pilgrim such that the journey would not only be a movement of the
body but also an itinerary of the soul.”
What physical places might pilgrims visit? “Places of the spirit where
the message of transcendence and brotherhood resound strongest,” the
council suggested. There are many possibilities, including close-to-home
shrines and centers. Long-distance travelers, it said, might even consider
the Auschwitz concentration camp, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or, of
course, the unique cities of Jerusalem and Rome.
4 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!