On Epiphany and going on pilgrimage in the same place

As the first Christian pilgrimage, the Epiphany sounds the call to renew the pilgrim heart in all Catholics. And for many, that will mean preparing for the epiphanies—the apocalypses, the revelations—that can come suddenly to us in the very place we live, instead of the one afforded to the three Kings when they arrived in faraway Bethlehem to something that, in T. S. Eliot’s words, was “satisfactory.” The Wise Men went on a distant pilgrimage, but there is a pilgrimage that every wise Christian can undertake by not going anywhere at all. And it is this pilgrimage—the pilgrimage of staying in the same place—that can be the most fulfilling.

Though many might say that it is the road, the camino, that makes the pilgrimage, it isn’t true that to stand still is no journey at all. There is a pilgrim spirit that requires no road, no epic quest, no distant shrine. There is a pilgrimage that stands still, and it is no less able to render a new and holy luster to the spiritual side of things—and it is no less joyful. Even one who stands still can have the heart of a wanderer and the joy of pilgrimage.

In accordance with the paradox of being, as St. Peter says, foreigners and exiles here at home, the idea of a pilgrimage is very much connected to the idea of home, even though they respectively suggest very different ideas. One is going somewhere, and the other is not going anywhere. But no matter where we are, or where we are heading, or where we are staying, we are all going somewhere—and the idea of a pilgrimage, as a journey, necessarily involves the idea of coming home, of a final destination. And it is something that can and must take root in every home and every heart. We must all have the readiness for the pilgrimage of standing still, of staying in place, and for the joy it brings.

A pilgrimage is an adventure, a coming toward (ad-ventus), a coming into contact with something high and holy that is, at first, too far to see. Faith in God begins with the experience and the sudden realization of the wonder of creation—the curious and joyful forms of our fellow pilgrims and of every natural thing along the way of our lives. But part of the whole idea, the whole purpose, of a pilgrimage, are those moments when we come toward the things we have seen but not observed and gain an understanding of them that goes beyond the pleasure of wonder. It is when we come toward those ordinary things and gain an extraordinary clarity that suddenly transforms our wonders into wisdoms. It is then that our pilgrimage arrives at something sacred: whether a shrine, a church, a tomb, a town, a home, a family. As Hilaire Belloc says in his essay “The Idea of a Pilgrimage” in Hills and the Sea:

On the way I will see all I can of men and things; for anything great and worthy is but an ordinary thing transfigured, and if I am about to venerate a humanity absorbed into the divine, so it behoves me on my journey to it to enter into and delight in the divine which is hidden in everything.

But the idea, or the essence, of the pilgrimage of staying in place entails the homecoming of holy things that have long lain hidden in plain sight before us, even in our own hearts. Their discovery is the joy of pilgrimage as they evoke the joy that we are not at home yet, and that we can be heading for home even within our homes. In fact, that joy is a duty. This is part of the paradox of the pilgrim, that makes him light on a heavy road—to find joy in the weary way. Again from Belloc:

Thus I may go upon a pilgrimage with no pack and nothing but a stick and my clothes, but I must get myself into the frame of mind that carries an invisible burden, an eye for happiness and suffering, humor, gladness at the beauty of the world, a readiness for the raising of the heart at the vastness of a wide view, and especially a readiness to give multitudinous praise to God; for a man that goes on pilgrimage does best if he starts out (I say it of his temporal object only) with the heart of a wanderer, eager for the world as it is, forgetful of maps and descriptions, but hungry for real colors and men and the seeming of things.

We all know the Odyssean joy of returning home after a journey, or even of arriving at our holy destination at the end of a pilgrimage, whether the tomb of St. James, Chartres cathedral, Rome, a shrine, a spring, a relic, a monastery, a fireplace, a dining room table. Everyone has a place where they belong, and when they wend their way there after weary wanderings, it is a fulfillment of the heart. The happy reclamation of familiar surroundings and personal orientation has provided inspiration for poets and peoples throughout the ages. It is a powerful mystery, and it is the powerful mystery of pilgrimage—a mystery which can take us where we belong even when we do not necessarily take the road.

We all know these fulfillments of the heart. Whether in a poem, a place, a piece of art, or a long-remembered conversation, returning to some familiar thing and finding new meaning, new significance, and new fulfillment is a vital aspect of the human journey. And such instances, such touchstones, form the backbone of a joyful pilgrimage. Such revolutions are what is at stake in the never-ending distractions of life. They are the reason for the existence of good families, good schools, good parishes, and good homes: to plant perennials in the soul that may only be noticed and appreciated after years of blooming, returning as unexpected fruit in the lives of children grown to adults, often when their savor is most needed, even as Mary kept all those things and pondered them in her heart.

The pilgrimage of standing still, where the holy comes to us instead of us coming to them, are gifts of grace, reminds us that we are going somewhere spiritually even if we are not going anywhere physically—that we are going back to some invisible mystery from whence we came. It is wonderful when we have those foreshadowings of return, of coming home, in the strange circlings of our own lives when the invisible becomes suddenly visible. The revolution of things are wheels that are on the move, carrying us, as in a chariot, to a heavenly home. And we must be watchful for those moments, those little homecomings that point to a larger one.

Such are the homecomings of a true pilgrimage. And though many of us may have the blessing of traveling to faraway holy places, there are many of us, perhaps most of us, faced with the challenge of the pilgrimage of staying in the same place. Let us brace for that adventure with readiness for the epiphanies God has in store for us if we are attentive. In staying where we are, let us all share in the same experience of coming home, of satisfaction, that the Magi had in their own way so long ago.

So, beginning this Epiphany which marks the Kings’ arrival at the cradle of the King of Kings, plan on going on pilgrimage this year in your home. Enjoy the journeys afforded by a parish, a family, a household. We are sent forth right where we are—sent forth as pilgrims, to go home while staying at home, to find the things that we might have lost or might not yet have found, and that lead on to the highest home of all.

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