Written by Barb Spies, OFS, Director of Mission Services and Pastoral Care

I recently had the opportunity to learn about a saint that I’d never heard of before. St. Cuthbert lived in the mid-600s in Scotland and northern England. Like St. Francis of Assisi, he served as a soldier as a young man, then entered into religious life. He was part of the Celtic Rite in the church of his day, but later offered reconciliation between those arguing for the Celtic versus the Roman Rite to accept the latter. He served at the priory on the Holy Island, Lindisfarne, off the coast of northern England. I have included a photo of St. Cuthbert’s Chapel at Ushaw College near Durham, England.

Through history, and today, people make a pilgrimage from Melrose Abbey, where St. Cuthbert began his religious life, to Lindisfarne, where he died. The book, A Pilgrimage into Letting Go: Helping Parents and Pastors Embrace the Uncontrollable, a recommendation of our chaplain, Stephanie, tells a modern story of one such pilgrimage. The authors note, “While we modern, believing animals have disconnected most bodily expressions of prayer from our Christian practice, our most basic, simple, ordinary, human, embodied act of putting one foot in front of the other has been woven into our faith story from the beginning.” They also say that pilgrimage “strips away what distracts us from the basic fact of our being alive, here in this world, held by God.” We are a pilgrim people.

Where might you take your pilgrimage walk? For some, it’s a foreign adventure like going to Assisi, St. Cuthbert’s Way in Scotland and England, or visiting Germany, the land of Luther. For others, it is driving up to Champion, Wisconsin to the National Shrine there. And for some it is even more local: a labyrinth path at a retreat center or the rosary garden at Felician Village. Our pilgrimages connect us with God’s creation in a new way. Franciscan Friar Eric Doyle, OFM, said, “The greatest challenge to organized religion in the western world now is whether it can guide individuals along the paths of their own inner depths and show how the riches of these depths can be recognized, accepted  and put at the service of all creation; and closely related to this, whether it can teach people to commune with God and nature.” Let a pilgrimage take you along those paths. May your steps lead you to God’s surprises for you.

Blessed Angela: “Rejoice in imitating the poverty of Jesus and our Holy Father Francis, living like the birds who rely on the Providence of God.”