We\u2019re going on pilgrimage.<\/strong> You, me, the Archbishop of Cincinnati, and 80+ assorted pilgrims, hitting the road Friday for 10 days. We may be packing light, but we\u2019re carrying priceless cargo\u2014our prayers and those of others who\u2019ve asked our intercession, the burdens and fears and and hurts and losses we long to lay in the lap of the Mother of God, the weight of our heart\u2019s devotion. The Marian shrines of Portugal, Spain, and France are our destination, but we know that destinations do not a pilgrimage make. It\u2019s all about the road.<\/p>\n That road, for us this time, is not el Camino de Santiago<\/em>, so we\u2019re not hoofing it (except for the 800-yard dash between terminals to make a tight connection at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, which in itself qualifies as a properly penitential exercise). As befits Lourdes and Fatima, two shrines unknown to medieval pilgrims, we are most of us traveling by 20th century means: planes, motor coaches, high-speed trains. You, however, will be even more advanced, accompanying us virtually through this blog, traveling invisibly through the ether like St Teresa of Avila (to whose scattered body parts we will also pay our respects) levitating.<\/p>\n Wifi and iPad and my duties as a tour management assistant willing, I will be posting daily from the road.<\/strong> I\u2019m no Egeria<\/strong><\/a> (though there\u2019s some assonance there with Egregious), but I hope to make this pilgrimage diary at least half as interesting as her chatty, liturgically detailed account of a journey made to the Holy Land some 1600 years ago. And I\u2019m no Chaucer, but I can guarantee that anytime you have \u201csondry folk, by aventure yfalle \/\u00a0In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes . . . alle\u201d<\/em> there will be Tales<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n For myself, as a pilgrim I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m closer to John Bunyan\u2019s Christian than to the pious Egeria or any of Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury company, though The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/em><\/strong><\/a> reflects an evangelical spirit that would reel in horror from the thought of rosaries and healing springs and the preserved fingers of saints. Christian, you see, is clueless and often afraid, constantly missing the road signs, falling into the Slough of Despond. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt.<\/strong> As a large, out-of-shape lady who suffers panic attacks, I confess to feeling more trepidation than excitement on this eve of the trip of a lifetime.<\/p>\n Christian gets help on the road from his friend Faithful\u2014as Dante is guided to Paradise by his beloved Beatrice<\/strong><\/a>, as the disguised Archangel Raphael steers Tobias on the right path<\/strong><\/a>\u2014and I am fortunate to have many Faithfuls. My friend\/boss\/disguised Archangel Michael, having endured a trip to Rome with me, decided that giving me other pilgrims to look out for would distract me from my own anxieties. My family and friends (including my Panda angel<\/strong><\/a> high school alum sisters and my colleagues at the Patheos Catholic Channel<\/strong><\/a>) are cheering me on. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati will be following along via its Stewardship Office<\/strong><\/a> Facebook page. And I\u2019m asking you to hang with me, too, Faithfuls. (You don\u2019t even need a passport.)<\/strong><\/p>\n Christian\u2019s pilgrim song is still sung to a brisk and hearty hymn tune by English Protestants, and it even worked its way occasionally into the otherwise more high-toned repertoire of the US Episcopal parish I used to belong to. I enjoyed its martial muscularity as a change from Palestrina and Bach, but now I want to reclaim as my theme song the original words Bunyan wrote:<\/p>\n Who would true valour see,\u00a0Let him come hither; Whoso beset him round\u00a0With dismal stories Hobgoblin nor foul fiend\u00a0Can daunt his spirit, Because\u2014hobgoblins and foul fiends of the mind notwithstanding\u2014to be a pilgrim has always been my first avowed intent<\/strong><\/a>. Lourdes<\/strong><\/a> especially calls, as it has since I read the Abbe Trochu\u2019s biography<\/strong><\/a> of Bernadette as a child, but of course everywhere on pilgrimage is an apparition site, a place where the curtain between earth and heaven is thin, a tent of meeting. A tabernacle, quite literally.<\/strong> And we do well to keep in mind the anonymous Irish bard\u2019s advice to pilgrims:<\/p>\n To go to Rome is little profit, endless pain.<\/em> But still. We\u2019re going on pilgrimage. Don\u2019t be like Christian\u2019s false friend Obstinate, who tries to dissuade him. Don\u2019t beset me round with dismal stories. Please be Faithful, and come with me.<\/strong><\/p>\n Tomorrow:<\/strong> The itinerary in detail\u2014and why this is an especially intriguing time<\/strong> to be going where we\u2019re going.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019re going on pilgrimage. You, me, the Archbishop of Cincinnati, and 80+ assorted pilgrims, hitting the road Friday for 10 days. We may be packing light, but we\u2019re carrying priceless cargo\u2014our prayers and those of others who\u2019ve asked our intercession, the burdens and fears and and hurts and losses we long to lay in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[165,164],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholicism","tag-blessed-virgin-mary","tag-pilgrimage"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nOne here will constant be,\u00a0Come wind, come weather
\nThere\u2019s no discouragement\u00a0Shall make him once relent
\nHis first avowed intent\u00a0To be a pilgrim.<\/p>\n
\nDo but themselves confound;\u00a0His strength the more is.
\nNo lion can him fright,\u00a0He\u2019ll with a giant fight,
\nHe will have a right\u00a0To be a pilgrim.<\/p>\n
\nHe knows he at the end\u00a0Shall life inherit.
\nThen fancies fly away,\u00a0He\u2019ll fear not what men say,
\nHe\u2019ll labor night and day\u00a0To be a pilgrim.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe Christ whom you seek in Rome,<\/em>
\nyou find at home, or seek in vain.<\/em><\/p>\n