Instead of reflecting on today's readings, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on my pilgrimage experience last May in Assisi and Rome.
My old friend Wikipedia defines "pilgrimage" in these terms: "A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about the self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life."
While my flight to Rome departed from JFK on Monday, May 13, 2019, my pilgrimage journey began several months before the flight when I started working at St. Francis College in November 2018: when I started learning more about the lives of St. Francis and St. Clare. I think too often we think of saints as being completely different from us. Their deeds, prayers, and boldness somehow make them unreachable, even inhuman. However, when I started learning more about Francis and Clare, their stories, their choices, and their families, I began to understand that they were people. Extraordinary people, yes, but people just like you and me. They lived real lives and made real choices. Lifestyle choices, relationship choices, and radical choices to love others.
Now, with this perspective and understanding of the lives of Francis and Clare, my time in Rome and Assisi gave me the best environment possible to visualize their lives and further understand the weight of their decisions. There were a couple aspects of the pilgrimage that particularly informed my understanding. For Francis, it was going to LaVerna, the name of this reflection series and also the name of a mountain to which Francis would retreat for times of solitude. Being an introvert who grew up near mountains and woods, I was a big fan of this one-day field trip. One of my favorite pastimes growing up was to hike the nature trails behind my house and spend time with God alone, but Francis took this to an incredible level. I mean, I was pretty much just going to my backyard, but Francis walked roughly 120 miles from Assisi to LaVerna to be alone with God. His devotion to getting away from the hustle and bustle of life in town to be with God and discern God's will for his life is simply unmatched. However, the important thing is this: whenever Francis would retreat, he would return back to Assisi to preach and love others. He struck a balance between the two. That is something I am trying to cultivate in my own life as I aim to visit my wooded sanctuary in western Massachusetts and live and work in Brooklyn.
For Clare, it was reenacting the night when she chose to leave her family. Clare had two options in life. She could enter into an arranged marriage and continue to live among the nobility or she could enter a traditional convent and live as a nun. However, Clare - bold and fearless Clare - carved her own path. Inspired by Francis' message of serving God through a life of poverty and simplicity, she left her home at the age of eighteen to meet Francis outside of town and learn more about this new way of living. Clare went on to begin her own religious order. Clare's life inspires me to be bold for God and, specifically, to find the third option.
In addition to these highlights, my pilgrimage journey was one of communitas. Communitas is an anthropological term which refers to a group of people who feel a sense of togetherness because they are going through the same experience, especially rituals. Being together with twenty-six other people for nearly two weeks isn't the dream of most introverts. However, when you go through the same rituals, visit the same places, eat the same meals, share in the same discussions, hear the same jokes, and pray the same prayers, something happens. Have you become friends? Hopefully. But what you have truly become is pilgrims.
In a not so far-fetched way, we are on one vast pilgrimage right now. Though unwelcome, this pandemic is a common experience that is shaping us. We talk about it, we hear the same news about it, we see the same numbers, we know the same symptoms, we adhere to the same guidelines, we use the same hand sanitizer - this is a liminal time for the world. Confined to our homes and apartments, it can feel like we are alone in this. Alone time can be good, but balance remains key - we can look to Francis to see how to handle this. But how can we balance this if we can't get within six feet of each other? Look to bold and fearless Clare. There are old pilgrims to reconnect with and new pilgrims to walk alongside on this journey. Zoom, Facebook, a call, a text - people would love to know there's another pilgrim walking alongside them at this time...wouldn't you?
I know I've been a bit lengthy with this, but let me once again reference my friend Wikipedia: "A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about the self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life." This certainly isn't a "pilgrimage" one would choose, but it's the one we have. Let's use this time to share the love of Christ like Clare and Francis, and, when we return to "daily life" and it's own set of unknowns, it is my prayer that we will be surrounded by many more pilgrims than before, going through this life together one step at a time.
Timothy Nagy
Assistant Director of Mission, Ministry & Interfaith Dialogue
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