- Time of past OR future Camino
- CdS 2012, CdN 2013, Shikoku 2015, CP 2016.
Today I was reading "The Life You Save May Ne Your Own. An American Pilgrimage." by Paul Elie. It is a combined biography of Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy. (Richard Rodrigues calls them 'the best Catholic American writers of the twentieth century'). At the beginning Elie defines his idea of pilgrimage as ...
"A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken in the light of a story. A great event has happened; the pilgrim hears the reports and goes in search of the evidence, aspiring to be an eyewitness. The pilgrim seeks not only to confirm the experience of others firsthand but to be changed by the experience.
Pilgrims often make the journey in company, but each must be changed individually; they must see for themselves, each with his or her own eyes. And, as they return to ordinary life the pilgrims must tell others what they saw, recasting the story in their own terms."
"A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken in the light of a story. A great event has happened; the pilgrim hears the reports and goes in search of the evidence, aspiring to be an eyewitness. The pilgrim seeks not only to confirm the experience of others firsthand but to be changed by the experience.
Pilgrims often make the journey in company, but each must be changed individually; they must see for themselves, each with his or her own eyes. And, as they return to ordinary life the pilgrims must tell others what they saw, recasting the story in their own terms."