Pilgrimage Of Faith

Thursday after Ash Wednesay, 2 March 2006

The whole Jewish and Christian history hinges on the act of a journey. After the loss of Eden, the early patriarchs were each given journeys to take, culminating in the final exodus of the Hebrew people to the promised land. Then we find them in exile and return, with the prophets journeying to preach and act, as if their monstrations were symbolic of Israel in some way.

When the Temple was established at Mount Moriah, in Jerusalem, we find the Jewish people transformed to a people of pilgrimage, seeking the Divine Presence.

The difference between this shrine and virtually all the other religious shrines of that time, is that it was not oracular. The people were summoned to pray, but their prayer was one of praise and supplication.

There were prophets right up to the time of the birth of Jesus, and because the biblical canon was yet to be defined, there were many “scriptures” and pious, Jewish devotional writing in circulation, some popular and others clearly rejected by orthodoxy. The Jewish religious life even then was fragmented by various sects, which included the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Nazarites, and so forth, each consecrated with their own practices and set of beliefs.

At the appearance of John the Baptist, we get some idea of the way popular preachers would draw crowds. Where there was no theatre or colosseum to distract and entertain, and where religious ideology was to be central tenet of local life, it is not difficult to understand why people would flock to hear a prophet.

Like the troubadours of the Middle Ages, these itinerant preachers were a phenomena unique to the Middle East, where among the Jewish people, they were “signs” and meant to “proclaim” messages or “news” from the Divine heart to the people of the covenant. It’s like a stockbroker who would feel compelled to tune into Bloomberg and teletext. A people in waiting, in need of news.

Into that historical framework, we see John work as the baptizer fleshing out the drama which would lead to the appearance of one whom he called, “Look, there is the lamb of God.” (John 1:36) and sent his disciples after Jesus.

Because of the many signs and wonders, miracles as well as proclamations, Jesus was able to draw many to him (cf Luke 5:1, Luke 9:1, Luke 12:1). Now, it is possible to consider Jesus as the one whom people journeyed to, like the Temple at the heart of Jewish faith, where pilgrims from the diaspora as well as the curious, and the faithful, would come to. Jesus likened himself as the loving God who might go out to seek the lost, like a shepherd in search of a missing sheep, and therefore presented this great face of God as a pilgrim. (Matthew 18:13, cf. Matthew 15:24, and 9:36)

Prior to the Middle English use of this word, which was from the Latin “peregrinus”, we do not find this word in the scriptures.

But in scripture, we have many incidents of journeys which lead to transformation, and perhaps even theophanies. Moses was a sojourner at Midian, when at Horeb, the mountain of God, Yahweh called out to him, and he spoke with God face to face, in the greatest theophanic event in the Jewish bible. (Exodus 3:4)

There is the account in the Gospel of Luke, where Mary hears of her aged cousin’s pregnancy, and sets out to seek Elizabeth in a town in the hill country of Judah. (Luke 1:39)

At the birth of Jesus, we hear of shepherds in the fields receiving an angelic visitation which led them to seek the new infant Messiah at the manger as described by the heavenly hosts. (Luke 2:9)There were also the great Magi, who “saw his star as it rose” and followed it to Bethlehem, to pay homage to the new born king. (Matthew 2:2)

While missionary journeys are intended to ministerial, where one is sent to serve by proclaiming the Good News by works of faith, the pilgrim instead is the seeker in search of that truth. You might think of Nicodemus (John 3), or the Thomas’ question to the Lord (John 14:5), “Lord… how can we know the way?”, or  that of the official who sought the healing of his son at Capernaum (John 4:46-53), or the Centurion (Matthew 8:5, Luke 7:2-10) in a similar version of the same incident.

The practice of visitation, of journeying to seek the truth (verification), of edifying one’s faith, to forsake the comfort of home for the purpose of pentitence, to take the path of walking with Jesus in humble imitation, has for many centuries filled the Christian imagination. We can think of Chaucer, the romances of the Middle Ages, lives and deeds of some saints, of whom we can include St. Francis of Assisi.

To embark on such a journey has always involved money, and today, the pilgrimages we see organised for the most part are tours essentially. No matter how we are to describe it, few “pilgrims” nowadays partake of the spirit of penance and humility.

For this reason, I have never felt compelled – or worthy, as some better address it – to consider myself a candidate for pilgrimage. Indeed, when I was young, and read of the great sites and churches, the places where great saintly works and deeds were established or lives martyred for the sake of the faith, I would let my own imagination give me whatever necessary fancy, or peer long into the photograph on the page and remember the details with vividness.

At that I would have been rather happy and content. I remember how special it felt on Maundy Thursday evenings when the visitation of the churches were made. For this, I must thank my parents who were diligent in the practice, although I vaguely always noticed my father being anxious about getting into the car, leaving and making time for the other planned churches. It annoyed my mother, for sure, for her own piety.

But when I had my own car, then I remembered how I preferred just hoping in and out of the organised church bus. Like the very “tours” I described earlier, the same fault is usually observed: the more familiar ladies and men of the church groups would be daintily be chatting away about irrelevant things, and incessantly. Quietly, one is to make glad of this, too, for if it is annoying, what better opportunity to bear with it for love of the Saviour whose Passion had begun, for the sake of men’s ignorance and arrogance. It is true, rejoice now, for when the time comes and the bridegroom is no longer with us, then we suffer. (Matthew 9:15)

I knew instinctively that the air, the earth, the stars, and all descendants of living creatures today are part of that unbroken thread that links me to the Incarnation and Creation, and will flow ever on, to the end of time (how ever that happens, cosmologically). And therefore, this very air on the earth, and water droplet is a veritable relic of Jesus, if only one is to comprehend the simplicity of the truth, and the dreadful beauty within.

My every visit to the Blessed Sacrament is a great pilgrimage, personally, to the fullest meaning of the world. Every practice of this habit, however my state of mind or heart, I will myself to do it, as an act of faith, devotion, and penance. When I had my very first year of study at Secondary One, at the old St. Joseph’s Institution school (now the Singapore Art Musuem, Bras Basah Road), I would try and visit St. Joseph’s Church (then part of the Portuguese Mission), Sts. Peter & Paul, and the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, all within a five minute stroll from the school grounds. What a blessed time it was, then!

As I grew older, and more confident of my own destiny, I would make it a point that whenever I was sufficiently early, I would attend the 7 am Mass at the Cathedral and then go to school assembly immediately. I was late for assembly a few occasions, and marked down by the prefects, none of whom appreciated that I had come from Mass across the street. I think except for a few “good” men, and among them in particular, I remember Marcus Frois and Benjamin Long, who would always let me off.

Therefore, I was content to know that I would never need to feel compelled to go on a specific “pilgrimage”, and I never felt the desire, although the longing existed as an inextinguishable fire within one’s heart. But you don’t feel as if it takes hold of you, and makes you feel incomplete without the experience. Yet, for the many occasions I have found myself standing among the sites of pilgrimage and prayer, I must say, these are happy accidents, and gifts. You feel that by being truly happy with making the visitation to the Blessed Sacrament a meaningful one each and every occasion, then through the fabric of space and time, God has an indescribably generous manner of letting opportunity occur, and if by dream or vision, or by being truly present, we find ourselves at those spaces marked by grace.