For 2024 Pilgrims: €50,- donation = 1 year with no ads on the forum + 90% off any 2024 Guide. More here. (Discount code sent to you by Private Message after your donation) |
---|
The quest doesn't drive us from the inside but it draws us from the outside to Fisterra. :idea:which drives us on the search
Br. David said:My hobby (almost embarrassed to admit it as it is considered rather anorak) is metal detecting and sometimes we find medieval lead ampullae from pilgrim shrines, cut open, poured out (we assume) and then buried in the middle of a field. I know nothing about what sort of ceremony would have taken place or even if it was done by the person alone.
But, someone went a long way to get that ampulla of holy water, to bring it back safely, all religious duties done, and then to cut it open and pour the water into their land ... such a type of ceremony goes back a long long time before Christianity ... as does this concept of pilgrimage - in whatever land and by whatever people. It seems to be hard-wired but I have no idea why -
Rebekah Scott said:I used to think it was all about the journey, until the last couple of times I was in Santiago de Compostela and I noticed something.
Every time I go there (not always as a pilgrim) I find myself re-tracing the final few hundred meters of my first camino walk: through the plaza, down the steps, under the arch, and then round that corner.
The Plaza Obradoiro opens out. The pilgrims are there, the tourists, the parador, the tuna-singers, and I walk on into the stony wideness... I let myself turn and look to the left at the great face of Santiago cathedral, that great over-the-top wedding cake of stone and iron and wood that reaches right up into the heavens.
And I cry. Every single time. It just gets me, right here.
More than any stage or phase of the journey, more than the beach at Finisterre or even my own little house on the meseta. It´s the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela that makes the Camino, to me, the Camino. I love that place with all my heart.
Reb.
Br. David said:as for destination versus journey - true, I think the destination of paramount importance .. but the journey a neccessary part of it...(JW edit) and therefore the journey and the hardship is at the same level as the destination - don't you think?
Of course there is; the question is what condition? Louis Charpentier told us. Europeans feel the need to go west where the sun sets and they took that urge with them to the States.... is there something in the hard drive of us humans which makes us search in this way?
sillydoll said:Has 'walking the camino - the Way' become the goal?
... discussing secular aspects includes the others in my view. But you are striking now the interesting topic of knowlegde. The feelings you mention visiting Chartres I share at Vézelay. It feels like coming home because I know that Mary Magdalan was there (spiritually) and professor Bauer had told me before that there Christ was shown as symbol of love for the first time in those dark ages. I was especially drawn to that white picture of a mother with baby that made me think of my own mother (foto below), and -I must confess- even at this moment it brings back a tear in my eye. The aspects of east-west-lines -I referred to above- in so many rows of upright stones in coastal areas in France are not connected with knowledge but with the unknown. The darkness of afterlife beyond Fisterra and the light in Vézelay...- by the way ...
sillydoll said:Before I left to walk the Via Francigena to Rome, Peter sent me this piece of Irish wisdom!
Pilgrim, take care your journey's not in vain,
A hazard without profit, without gain;
The king you seek you'll find in Rome, it's true,
But only if he travels on the way with you."
9th-century Irish text
sillydoll said:....SNIP..
Today we choose a starting point that suits our time frame, and pocket, we fly in - start walking, and when we reach our destination we say 'goodbye traditional pilgrimage, I'm now going to rejoin the real world" and fly home. Modern pilgrimage is a one way phenomenon!....SNIP
.
JohnnieWalker said:Has walking the Camino - the Way become the goal? Asks Sil.
The Cathedral authorities in Compostela say the goal is the most important thing for pilgrims and not simply the Way.
Pilgrimage in every tradition is a journey to a holy place, a place set apart. So it is the destination which defines pilgrimage.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?