A Pilgrimage to Eternity

 

 A Pilgrimage to Eternity

By Timothy Egan

 

“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”

–St. Augustine

 

“I was told I could find the saint’s relics at the comparatively small Catholic church of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The sacred scraps are behind glass about the altar in the Martyr’s Chapel. One object is a piece of cloth from his clerical vestment. The other is a bone chip, wrapped in jewels, though there is no explanation of what part of Becket’s frame this came from. The skeletal nugget could be anyone’s, and the cloth could be a fraud as well. In this dark and lonely chapel in Canterbury’s old town, you have to accept on faith that the two holiest items did indeed belong to Thomas Becket. I sit and take in what aura there is, the years and hopes imbued in these average looking objects. I think of all the people with tumorous bellies or sightless eyes, pleading, Sadly, I am not feeling anything. But then, I didn't ask for anything. Not just yet…” Tim Egan APTE p. 18

 

We do not have all the answers. We are on a spiritual journey. We look to Scriptures, reason and tradition to help us on our way. Whoever you are, we offer you a space to draw nearer to God and with us. –Sign in St. Martins, Canterbury. APTE p. 19

 

To enter the Kingdom of Heaven, one must allow himself to be amazed. In our relationship with God, in prayer, do we allow ourselves to be amazed or do we think that prayer is talking to God like a parrot? Do we let ourselves be surprised? Because the encounter with the Lord is always a living encounter, not an encounter at a museum.

–Pope Francis

 

The greatest danger is not that we aim too high and miss it, but that we aim too low and reach it.

 –Michelangelo

 

Hope guides me.

–Petrarch

 

“I believe in the Resurrection, and I owe this sentiment to the Via Francigena. I’d been moving in this direction for a month or so, even as I grew more and more disgusted with the powerful custodian of this life-affirming event. The evidence from the first century, the many people who shower they had seen the risen Christ and chose death rather than recanting, is a compelling argument–for who would die for a fraud? But what cinched it for me was something the young Lutheran minister in Geneva, Andy Willis, said about the message of Easter from Jesus, some that echoes Jewish sentiment on what happens after death: “Nothing can keep my love in a grave.” Tim Egan APTE p. 319.

 

Years ago when the desire to walk the Camino to Santiago was but a tiny seed, I came upon Timothy Egan’s A Pilgrimage to Eternity at a bookstore. I had noticed it was of the Via Francigena, the ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome.  its subtitle is what caught my attention: from Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith. I didn’t purchase the book (my work schedule made it hard to read recreationally) but I was left with the desire to read it.

 

As I leave for Rome in less than two weeks, where I plan to walk the Via Francigena from Siena to Rome, I recently read the book. It is an engaging and intelligent adventure as Egan recounts his physical and interior pilgrimage on the VF, as he calls the Via Francigena. As a “lapsed” Irish Catholic, he slowly reveals his reasons for the pilgrimage: his desire to reassess the faith in which he was raised and its relevance for a contemporary man. As he walks, he jostles the evidence for the opposing positions: how the Catholic church has brought value and benefits to the world versus the scandals and inhumanities it has committed in the name of Christ. He acknowledges the great achievements of the Church (the salvaging of knowledge and culture by the monasteries at the fall of Rome, the hospices for travelers, the fomentation of culture), while countering them with the failings of the Church (the Crusades, the Catholic-Protestant religious wars, the African slave trade, the Inquisition, the burning of heretics, the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda). In the cases of the great horrors, he lingers, as we also want to do, on where God was in the face of such suffering and evil. As a journalist educated in Jesuit schools, he understands the free will of humans, but it provides little comfort in the great horrors of the 20th century and how God could allow this to happen. Egan also calls to mind the Church’s reluctance to accept the advances of science, as when Galileo postulates contradicted the Church’s understanding of how the universe functioned. 

 

Egan also shares his family’s challenges with the Church as when his mother was asked by her parish priest and local bishop not to have a hysterectomy even though her doctor recommended it for her health. He also recounts his family's horrific experience with a pedophile priest and the lack of accountability by Church authorities to keep children and minors safe, and the lasting trauma it left in the lives of victims. 

 

As Egan travels, he fleshes out the lives of saints–Thomas Beckett, Augustine, Francis + Clare, Ignatius, and many other saints who are remembered along the VF–and their acts of love and altruism and generosity. He points out the popular piety and faith of many present Christians to continue to bring their pleas to God and his holy ones. Egan is not without his petition–his sister-in-law has cancer and his wife is moving heaven and earth to find a cure. But ultimately, Egan’s primary question is around the role of faith in God.

 

In the end he affirms his faith. He cites how early Christians were witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and were willing to die for their faith. Certainly, there was something there. He also appreciates how present Christians live out the Gospel in helping their fellow man in contradiction to the prevailing culture and attitude, e.g., those to feed and shelter migrants who are presently unwanted in Western countries. He has a fond appreciation of the late Pope Francis, whose openness to migrants, scientists, agnostics, atheists, queer folk and those on the margins stand in stark contrast to the present science-skeptism and anti-immigration of the present US administration. Ultimately, he recognizes the need to forgive the many sins those in the Church have committed to his family and those through the ages. 

 

I appreciate the book as it describes well those Catholics whose parents were devout Catholics, who had an unwavering trust and faith in the Church and its teachings. While the following generation of Catholics desired to keep the faith of their forebears they were more educated, and more skeptical of the Church’s pronouncements and less defensive in regards to the failings and scandals of the Church. In some cases, these Catholics became more selective of the Church's teaching, “cafeteria Catholics” is a common derisive term. But I would venture to say that these Catholics are using their conscience (reason, current knowledge, and the rationale for the teaching) to come to discern whether a tenet should be followed. We are called to choose that which brings us life and leave what does not.  

 

As a life-long Catholic who is grateful for the faith given me by my parents, I have sought ot articulate and live the Gospel in a manner and in a language comprehensible to the contemporary person. One can see the Pascal Mystery in the cycle of life, from the clear example of the metamorphosis of the butterfly to all organisms who live out their life cycle giving life to the next generation of organisms. Life after death is present in the many memorial services of individuals whose love and actions continue to live out in the hearts and minds of those who remain. But ultimately, the belief in the Resurrection, perhaps the most difficult and the most central part of the Christian creed, is a mystery, a tenet based on faith. Fr. James Martin S.J. has stated, “One of the best explanations is that the Jesuits explain the Church to the world and the world to the Church.” I would say that explaining the Catholic beliefs to the contemporary person is an ongoing personal vocation; it starts in the interior reflection with God and is evangelized in word and action.