On Pilgrimage

Lurking behind Thanksgiving’s obvious message of gratitude for God’s blessings is another theme: pilgrimage.

The gratitude of our Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers rose from this fact: they WERE pilgrims, following a journey along a path to an unfamiliar destination, a place where survival itself would be at risk.

During my recent trip to France’s southwest, I visited Saint Jean Pied-de-Port, where, since the 12th century, pilgrims from three different starting points have converged at the foot of the Pyrenees to rest one last time before beginning the daunting trek over the mountains into Spain and their eventual destination at San Diego de Compostella.

The amazing thing: after more than 8 centuries the number of pilgrims keeps growing. Each year brings a new record.

Until recently participants could obtain a record of their pilgrimage by registering their reason for going. Some said religion, others said spirituality, others sport, others leisure—and some said all of the above!

It fascinates me that all these reasons motivate people to go on pilgrimage, even though they could well motivate other activities instead. Why is it that pilgrimage draws people? Why is the pilgrim experience so popular?

We should not forget how many forms pilgrimage takes, and how diverse their destinations. There is Lourdes as well as Compostella. There is the Holy Land and Mecca (even if arriving by air is unlike walking from Paris to Spain). There is the “Path to Jerusalem,” the labyrinth in the cathedral at Chartres where one follows a stone path in the floor to arrive at a center that symbolizes Jerusalem itself.

And then there are historical pilgrimages. The Plymouth Pilgrims, for example, set a precedent for every wave of immigrants that followed, including those who today trek the line of land from South America up through Mexico into the promised land of the American southwest.

They arrive, like their Plymouth forebears, without permission or papers. And like them, they hope and pray the natives will offer the kind of welcome that leads to a shared bounty for which all might give thanks to God.