Going on a pilgrimage, a trip to a holy place, has always been seen as a way to draw closer to God. A pilgrim is a wayfarer with a destination — usually a shrine or city associated with a great saint whose presence still echoes there. On pilgrimage, the adventure itself is as important as the destination. One goes away to touch the infinite and comes back changed by the experience. As T.S. Eliot says near the end of his poem “Little Gidding”: “We shall not cease from exploration/and end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time.” In a sense, all journeys are journeys home.
Not all of us are able to travel to Assisi or the Holy Land. Still, we have the ability to turn even the most mundane vacation into a religious experience when we enter into it with the proper spirit.
Pray your vacation
Begin, end, and fill you days with prayers of praise and thanksgiving for the wonders of this world. Whether you are standing on a huge rock looking out at the turbulent ocean or a mile below the surface of the Earth in a silver mine, as I once was, you will encounter God’s handiwork. Let that be a starting point for prayer. As Pope John Paul II — the most traveled pontiff in history — wrote for the World Day of Tourism 2001, “Travelers in touch with the wonders of creation perceive the Creator’s presence in their hearts, and they are led to exclaim with sentiments of deep gratitude, ‘How delightful are all his works, how dazzling to the eye!’ (Sirach 42:23).”
In addition, you can pray for those you meet on your journey who are in need. When I visited Cuba in 1998 with a church group, I met a young priest who said, “Pray for us. We have a lot of work to do.” I have made the people of Cuba part of my daily prayer ever since.
Experience the Church’s Catholicity
Many Catholics seem to think of vacation as a guilt-free time to sleep in or hit the beach on Sunday morning. But participating in the eucharistic liturgy and other liturgies away from home can be a wonderful experience. When you take part in the services at local churches, you will experience the diversity of the Catholic Church. I have participated in Masses in Japanese, Flemish, Spanish. Even when I didn’t understand the language, I always knew where we were in the familiar order of the Mass.
And yet the Mass — and the Church — is also different in each country as it reflects the local culture. That struck me one Sunday morning at the Catholic cathedral of Kyoto, Japan; the Japanese bowed to each other instead of shaking hands at the sign of peace.
Even within the United States, your Sunday worship experience may be diverse. You may find yourself praying at a tiny church in Michigan or participating in a mariachi Mass at San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, where a crypt holds the remains of the legendary defenders of the Alamo. In addition, the art and architecture of churches, chapels, and cathedrals always contain something of the people who built them, while at the same time expressing a universal faith. The statues and paintings may look more like the people who created them than they look like you. That’s always an invitation to reflect on how we, too, tend to see God the Father, and even the saints, in our own image.
Learn about other religions
Pope John Paul II cited learning about other religions as one of the blessings of tourism. Perhaps he meant that exposure to other religions helps us reflect more deeply on our own. I once stood in a Buddhist cemetery on a hill near Tokyo. Some of the grave markers above the cremated remains were 1,000 years old. Many of the newer markers were informally decorated by objects associated with the deceased person
“How short the time I spend in preparing for Communion!” he writes in The Imitation of Christ. “I am seldom wholly recollected, and very seldom, indeed, entirely free from distraction.” Yet Kempis finds hope in God’s power to draw us closer to Him, and notes that though our earthly journeys may offer excitement, we need not venture far to experience Christ’s presence: “Many people travel far to honor the relics of the saints, marveling at their wonderful deeds and at the building of magnificent shrines. They gaze upon and kiss the sacred relics encased in silk and gold; and behold, You are here present before me on the altar, my God!” |
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in life, such as a coffee mug or a beer can. I couldn’t help but reflect on how long Buddhism has been in Japan and how the Buddhists’ belief in reincarnation makes the meaning of death different for them than for Christians.
A close encounter with another religion may cause you to reflect on its similarities with our Catholic faith rather than its differences, even across national boundaries. In a Presbyterian church in Havana, I heard a woman praying in what seemed to be a familiar rhythm even though I don’t know Spanish. An American friend leaned over and whispered to me, “That’s the Magnificat!”
Encounter other cultures
In the customs, crafts, and art of human beings we see a reflection of God’s creative activity. We may notice this most readily when the culture is not our own but from a different community or a different time. The contrast can cause us to reflect on and appreciate a new culture, as well as our own. Th is doesn’t necessarily require crossing a national border. You may find another culture in a two-hour car ride within your own state.
Tourists can become “agents of dialogue between cultures in order to build up a civilization of love and peace,” Pope John Paul II wrote. “Tourism enables people to live for a time among others and learn about their living conditions, their problems, and their religion; it allows travelers peacefully to recognize other peoples’ legitimate aspirations and to share them.”
Create your own retreat experience
You can’t immerse yourself in another culture without becoming part of the hustle and bustle. And you have to at least check out the mass media to see how much of it is familiar — made in America — and how much is different from what you know. That’s part of experiencing the culture. Still, you can also carve out part of your vacation as a little self-directed retreat. This is a perfect time to have a media-free period of quiet and renewal that allows you to sort out the important from the urgent.
Keep a travel journal
At the end of each day, write about and reflect on your experiences. Ask yourself: How is God speaking to me in this journey? How have people experienced God in the history, culture, and geography of this place? How is God moving in my own culture and in my own life? You may answer these questions and others that occur to you in the form of prayers, meditations, letters to and from God, or poems. Reread what you have written through the years and spend some time thinking about how your thoughts and opinions have changed or remained the same. Or, try this: Each day of your trip, buy a postcard bearing an image that has particular meaning for you that day. Write a brief reflection on the back about the experiences and spiritual insights you associate with the image, then mail it to yourself.
Whether you go on a pilgrimage to one of the great holy places of the Catholic tradition in Europe or a vacation to the beach, any trip can advance your journey of faith. We’re never on holiday from God. CD
Originally published in St. Anthony Messenger, June 2002.