Let nothing disturb you. / Let nothing upset you. / Everything changes. / God alone is unchanging. / With patience all things are possible. / Whoever has God lacks nothing. / God alone is enough. —Teresa of Ávila

In CAC’s Turning to the Mystics podcast, Father Richard shares what drew him to Teresa of Ávila:

I first opened her Book of My Life when I was in college, and it just seemed like gobbledygook. I was nineteen or twenty years old; I just had no real inner experience. I conveniently shelved her, and only came back in my early years here in New Mexico. Realizing I had much more to learn if I was going to present myself as a teacher of contemplation and action, I had to go to the best in the field, and she was there. And I found what I once thought was so abstruse was now striking home again and again. [1]

Richard describes the gifts of mystical experience, particularly those Teresa emphasizes:

Mystics always bring this message in some form: “Do not be afraid.”

They know that it is all okay and will be finally okay, too! They want to tell us so that we can stop fretting and fearing and enjoy divine union now. Enjoy is the operative word. Mystical experience allows us to enjoy our own lives and to stop creating enemies and thinking we need to be afraid of certain people; to stop fearing nations and races we feel we have to punish and kill.

Where can we expect to go in life if we follow this way of perfection? What are its fruits? When we are enjoying deep union, we won’t need to create divisions, mistrust, and separation.

True spiritual encounter changes our politics, our attitude toward money, our use of time, our relationships toward foreigners and the weak, our attitude toward war and nationalism. We are citizens of God’s Big Kingdom now (see Philippians 3:20). Be prepared to have a very different lifestyle afterward.

If you are not ready to change, don’t seek out God. Once we have one sincere moment of divine union, we will want to spend all our time on the one thing necessary, which is to grow deeper and deeper in love every chance that we get.

Talk to those who have had a near-death, or nearing-death, experience. They all agree: it’s all about love. It’s all about union.

Saint Teresa of Ávila and her Way of Perfection are time-tested, reliable guides to this life:

Of love, nonattachment, and humility.

Of letting go, entering luminous darkness, and being ambushed by the Lover of the Cosmos.

Of recognizing union on the other side of fading dualisms. [2]

Teresa herself reminds us:

Remember: if you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love. [3]

-Sarah Young Jesus Listens

Precious Jesus, You are the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in You will live, even though he dies. You spoke this powerful truth to Martha when her brother Lazarus had been dead for four days, and she believed You. Then You commanded Lazarus to come out of his tomb, and he did! I love pondering Your teaching that You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You are everything I could ever need—for this life and the next. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in You. Believing this truth simplifies my life and helps me stay focused on You. Please train me in the joyful discipline of treasuring You above all else. You are the answer to all my struggles, the Joy that pervades all time and circumstances. You make my hard times bearable and my good times even better. So I come to You just as I am, desiring to share more and more of my life with You. I rejoice as I journey with You—the Way who guides me step by step and the Resurrection who gives me eternal Life. In Your majestic Name, Amen

JOHN 11:25, 43–44; Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

JOHN 14:6 NKJV; . 6 Jesus said to him, “I amthe way,the truth, and the life.No one comes to the

COLOSSIANS 2:2–3; That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, 

MATTHEW 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 80). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

In this heartfelt prayer from Teresa of Ávila, we witness her concern for the whole world, her desire to speak truth to power, and her willingness to risk everything in order to be of service. Here is CAC friend Mirabai Starr’s translation: 

Blessed be the soul the Lord brings to an understanding of the truth! If only world leaders could enter this exalted consciousness. It would be so much more worthwhile for them to strive for this state of prayer than for all the power in the world. What righteousness would prevail in a nation like this. What atrocities would be avoided.

Any man who reaches this stage has such unshakable love of God that any fear of risking his honor or his life falls away. This is an especially great blessing for someone who has the obligation to lead his community….

O Lord, even if you were to give me the authority to proclaim these truths publicly, no one would believe me…. But at least it would satisfy me to have a real voice. I would count my life as nothing if it meant that I could clearly communicate even one of these sacred teachings to the world….

I keep having these irresistible impulses to speak the truth to political leaders. But since I do not have access to these men, I turn to you, my Lord, and beg you to make all things right. You well know that I would gladly forfeit all the blessings you have given me and transfer them to these rulers…. If they could experience what I have experienced, I know that it would be impossible for them to allow the violations they have been condoning.

O my God! Please help world leaders understand the magnitude of their responsibilities….

I sincerely pray for our leaders, and I would like to be of some help to them. Such an urge makes a soul reckless. I would gladly risk my life to gain what I believe in….

Once a soul has attained this level of prayer, she does not merely desire to serve God; his Majesty [a name Teresa uses for God] gives her the strength to manifest the desire. The soul would not hesitate to try anything that might be of service to him. Any sacrifice for his sake feels like nothing, because she knows that anything other than pleasing him means nothing….

Here is my life. Here is my honor. Here is my will. I give them all to you. I am yours. Use me as you will….

The soul is his soul. He is in charge. He illuminates her. It seems that he is guarding her against offending him. He helps her to wake up in service of him….

As long as she receives God’s favors with humility and gratitude, always bearing in mind that the Beloved gives them and that she herself does almost nothing, she will retain her equanimity.

Zest for Life, Love for Creation 

Contemplative teacher Tessa Bielecki captures Teresa of Ávila’s love for God revealed through creation: 

Teresa teaches us how to live the human adventure with zest and enthusiasm. She was in love with every dimension of life: with people and places, music, laughter and celebration, with nature and its abundance.

We see her enthusiasm in the vibrant imagery she draws from her experience of the earth. She speaks of sun and wind and rain, clouds, crystal, and falling comets, tempests, thunderclaps and lightning. She calls God the Sun in the interior of the soul, casting brilliant light into every corner of our being. When she prayed, Teresa loved to look at fields and flowers, “reading” from the book of nature. She loved to live near water, with good soil and gardens.…

Teresa urges us to embrace nature in our prayer because nature awakens us, reminding us of the Creator. She can’t contain her praise and glorifies God as Lord of the world and Beauty exceeding all other beauties. “Who could make known the majesty with which You reveal Yourself!” she cries out in one of her spontaneous prayers. “O my God, God, God, author of all creation! And what is creation if You, Lord, should desire to create more? You are almighty; Your works are incomprehensible.”

When we have trouble praying, Teresa recommends that we turn to nature: “Go to some place where you can see the sky, and walk up and down a little.” Since God is infinite and everywhere, sometimes we rejoice as much in meditating on creation as in meditating on the Divine. Why limit ourselves to only one of creation’s mysteries when there are so many? Teresa mentions the mystery of water, the sparrowhawk, and the tiny ant. Any of these is enough for a whole period of prayer, immersing us in the wonder and wisdom of God. What would happen if we knew “the property of every created thing?”

Bielecki shows how Teresa drew upon nature to describe the soul’s journey with God: 

Since [Teresa] lived close to the earth, she said the spiritual life is like bees making honey, silkworms spinning their cocoons, fish swimming in a running stream. Depending on our stage of spiritual growth, we may be like mice, toads or snakes, flitting moths, butterflies, doves, wild horses or wounded deer. We may encounter God’s majesty as a mighty eagle or a roaring lion.

Teresa’s favorite nature image was water. She speaks lavishly of flowing springs, pools, wells, and fountains, rivers, waves, and the sea, urging us to irrigate our hearts with the waters of Life. When instead we clog our lives with triviality and endless distraction, she sees us bogged down in a swamp, struggling to get muddy water out of a puddle.

Teresa also loved fire imagery. If we build a fire in our living room or out in the wilds, we can reflect with her on the raging conflagration which enkindles us with the fire of divine love.

The Beloved Desires Action  

Teresa of Ávila was investigated several times during the Spanish Inquisition. At the insistence of her superiors, she wrote of her many visions and raptures to prove they came from God, and that she was firmly rooted in “orthodox” Catholicism. Translator and spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr writes:

Through her many writings, Teresa of Ávila openly shares her humanity with the world. There were times when she was paralyzed by fear of rejection and others when she was so courageous in the face of what she knew to be her sacred destiny that she risked being executed as a heretic. She made mistakes, as we all do. Some she apologized profusely for; others she refused to admit to until years later. Like us, she was petty or generous, irritable or unconditionally loving, attributing everything to her progress along the path of contemplative prayer. But she never ceased showing up for the spiritual work. [1] 

Teresa was a real person with real advice for real people of her time—and our own. Here are some examples from her masterpiece, The Interior Castle:

It’s tempting to think that if God would only grant you internal favors, you would be able to withstand external challenges. His Majesty [a name Teresa uses for God] knows what is best for us. He does not require our opinion on the matter and, in fact, has every right to point out that we don’t have any idea what we’re asking for. Remember: all you have to do as you begin to cultivate the practice of prayer is to prepare yourself with sincere effort and intent to bring your will into harmony with the will of God. [2]

Teresa was also an astute spiritual director who turned people away from an emphasis on perfection and piety and toward compassionate action:

Sometimes I observe people so diligently trying to orchestrate whatever state of prayer they’re in that they become peevish about it. They don’t dare to move or let their minds be stirred for fear of jeopardizing the slightest degree of devotion or delight. It makes me realize how little they understand of the path to union. They think the whole thing is about rapture.

But no, friends, no! What the Beloved wants from us is action. What he wants is that if one of your friends is sick, you take care of her. Don’t worry about interrupting your devotional practice. Have compassion. If she is in pain, you feel it, too. If necessary, you fast so that she can eat. This is not a matter of indulging an individual, you do it because you know it is your Beloved’s desire. This is true union with his will. What he wants is for you to be much happier hearing someone else praised than you would be to receive a compliment yourself. If you have humility, this is easy. It is a great thing to be glad when your friends’ virtues are celebrated. [3]

 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 

8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, ^hhaving put on the breastplate of ⁱfaith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰ where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on …

‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ‘ 

Author and interspiritual teacher Megan Don introduces the Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) as an exemplar of action and contemplation:

Teresa’s life provides us with an exceptional example of bringing the contemplative and active life together; it displays both a profound internal depth and an exceptionally productive outcome.…

At the age of twenty, after much deliberation, she chose to enter the Carmelite Monastery in Ávila. She did not make this choice because of a vocational “calling” but because Teresa understood it to be a favorable alternative to marriage….

Her fascination with the world continued while she lived in the monastery, since it was not an enclosed order, and a stream of visitors occupied much of her time…. Prayers were ordered and recited by rote, which left her soul dry and uninspired. She attempted to enter her own “prayer of quiet,” but finding the thoughts in her head far too noisy and disturbing, she gave up any attempt to develop a more meaningful way to pray. Her relationship with the Beloved [God] at this time was fairly superficial.

For twenty years she lived a divided life. On the one hand her ego desired worldly attachments, while on the other her spirit was calling her to a deeper communion with the divine. At the age of forty, Teresa finally surrendered completely to her Beloved. Her real life and work had begun. She returned to her prayer of quiet, allowing the Beloved to lead her, no longer relying on her own techniques. Meditation became essential to Teresa in establishing a clear and firm foundation with the divine, and as she walked further on her spiritual pathway, she came to understand that this external Beloved also “rests within.” It was to this place that she would constantly return to receive guidance, love, and a feeling of deep peace that she could not find elsewhere. [1]

From that place of peace and inner authority, Teresa worked to return the Carmelite order to its original emphasis on prayer, poverty, and simplicity, going on to found seventeen new convents and monasteries. Don continues:

Contrary to popular belief, the pinnacle of the mystical life is often lived in the world, even though it is not of the world. Having come into a full consciousness of the reality of existence, the mystic is now returned to society, displaying an extraordinary energy for the work required. This energy is none other than the divine force working in and through this willing worker of the Beloved, and it far surpasses anything we human beings can do alone. Teresa’s life is one such example of a person in and through whom the Beloved worked, and throughout her life she reiterated that the ultimate purpose of the sacred marriage [or union with God] is to give birth to good works in the world. [2]

Perfection Is Practicing Love 

In his foreword to The Way of Perfection, Teresa of Ávila’s book on the practice of prayer, Richard Rohr asks:

What is “the way of perfection”? (It isn’t about our perfection, by the way, but the recognition of God’s seamless perfection, woven into the fabric of our life and present all along.)

Saint Teresa writes:

Let the truth be in your hearts, as it will be if you practice meditation, and you will see clearly what love we are bound to have for our neighbors. [1]

Teresa teaches the way of perfection as practicing fraternal love, nonattachment to material things, and authentic humility. Some aspects of this wisdom might seem counterintuitive to readers today. Forgive me, but these virtues of nonattachment and humility don’t often make the vision boards of contemporary spiritual seekers!

Why is this?

What the mystics know, and what we’re having to relearn, is that it’s through a kind of luminous darkness of nonattachment and humility that we come to be seized by real love, God’s love.

I wonder if the only way that conversion, enlightenment, and transformation ever happen is by a kind of divine ambush. We have to be caught off guard. As long as we are in control, we are going to keep trying to steer the ship by our previous experience of being in charge. The only way we will let ourselves be ambushed is by trusting the “Ambusher,” and learning to trust that the darkness of intimacy will lead to depth, safety, freedom, and love.

God needs to catch us by surprise because our very limited, preexisting notions keep us and our understanding of God small. We are still trying to remain in control. We still want to “look good”!

God tries to bring us into a bigger world.

A world where, by definition, we are not in control.

A world where we no longer need to look good.

A terrible lust for certitude and rigid social order has characterized the last five hundred years of Western Christianity, and it has simply not served the soul well at all. Once we lost a spirituality of darkness as its own kind of light, there just wasn’t much room for growth in faith, hope, and love.

So God, as The Way of Perfection attests, has to come indirectly: catching us off guard and out of control, when we are empty instead of full of ourselves.

That is why the saints—including Teresa—talk about suffering so much. About nonattachment to the fleeting passions that put us on a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs.

The mystics are not masochistic, sadistic, negative, morbid, or oppositional. They have seen the pattern and, as Teresa says in one place, it is not that we are happy for the suffering. Who could be? Who would be?

No. We are happy for the new level of intimacy with God that the suffering has brought us to.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

¹⁴ The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. 

4Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. —Matthew 6:21

Author Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook connects pilgrimage to the universal longings of our hearts:

The first thing all human beings hear in the womb is their mother’s heartbeat. The metaphor of a journey to the center of the heart offers many insights into the nature of pilgrimage in general and the inward journey of the pilgrim in particular. One pilgrimage site that speaks to the journey to the center of the heart is found in the small village of Chimayó, located in the mountains of northern New Mexico. “If you are a stranger, if you are weary from the struggles of life … whether you have a broken heart, follow the long mountain road, find a home in Chimayó.” [1] …

Many of the pilgrims who travel there are not necessarily of the same religious tradition, and they are often not totally committed to the pilgrimage tradition or necessarily believe in miraculous healing. But they go on pilgrimage because they feel a longing in their hearts, and they are searching for something—perhaps divine love or inner peace, relief from a broken heart, or a more meaningful life—and they gain solace from belonging to a group of pilgrims along the way….

Pilgrimage, then, involves … the heart. The Talmud says, “God wants the heart.” It is the heart that holds the body together…. Augustine of Hippo [354–430] wrote that the heart is a metaphor for our deepest and truest selves, and he frequently uses the image as a way to explain his own journey to God: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” [2]

Kujawa-Holbrook writes of the interwoven journeys that pilgrimage takes us through:

The sacred art of pilgrimage involves both an inward and outward journey. … The pilgrim strives to hold both the inward and outward journey together, sometimes in tension, but always focused on the search for meaning, for the Divine…. What most distinguishes the sacred art of pilgrimage from a tourist trip or hiking expedition, as beneficial as these are, is the characteristic inward journey, a turning of one’s heart to the Divine, with the expectation of transformation on every level of being along the way. Benedict of Nursia [c. 480–547], the founder of Western monasticism and author of the Benedictine Rule, used to advise his monks and nuns to “listen with the ear of their heart.” [3] In other words, the pilgrim’s first yearning is in the heart, deeply and inwardly, sometimes for years before the outward journey begins.

____________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Listens

My ever-present Lord, I’ve been looking ahead at uncertainties, letting them unnerve me. I see fear and discouragement waiting alongside my pathway into the future—ready to accompany me if I let them. Please keep reminding me that You go before me and will be with me. You hold me by my right hand. Because You live beyond time, You’re able to be with me where I am and simultaneously be on the path up ahead. Through eyes of faith, I can see You shining brightly—beckoning me on, encouraging me to fix my gaze on You. So I will cling tightly to Your hand as I walk past those dark presences of dread and discouragement. Help me keep looking toward Your radiant Presence that beams out unfailing Love and endless encouragement. My confidence comes from knowing You are continually with me and You are already in my future, preparing the way before me. If I listen carefully, I can hear You calling back to me from the trail up ahead—words of warning and wisdom, courage and hope: “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you.” In Your powerful Name, Jesus, Amen

DEUTERONOMY 31:8; The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

PSALM 73:23 NKJV; Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. 24 You will guide me with Your counsel, 

PSALM 119:76; May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. 77 Let your compassion come to me 

ISAIAH 41:10 NASB Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will also help you,

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 72). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Father Richard shares some “disciplines” or practices that he believes are essential for making a pilgrimage a Spirit-filled journey instead of merely a trip:   

Today, what I’d like to speak about are disciplines or what we call spiritual practices. If we want to prepare and open our spirits to receive everything we can and to perceive the fullness of the moment, I would like to at least suggest a few interior disciplines.

Primarily, a pilgrimage is an individual matter between the person and God. It’s not horizontal as much as vertical. The primary concern is that we make an interior journey and hopefully find a bigger God. Therefore, I want to encourage each of us to take time alone each day.

First of all, let us practice the discipline of silence. Secondly, let us take some solitude. Thirdly, we practice the discipline of speech. Our patterns of many years are that whenever there is a moment of silence, we fill it up by talking. Let’s see if God can teach us a way to say only what’s necessary and what’s important.

We live in front of the TV, or whatever it might be. Now on pilgrimage, we’re away from that. [DM Team: Today, our smart phones make this discipline more difficult and even more essential!] We don’t need to just fill the silence up with more sounds. There are things that don’t need to be talked about, things that are just time fillers. They’re just there to fill up our nervousness. How can we deepen the quality of our communication while we’re on this retreat and this pilgrimage?

If you keep a journal on pilgrimage, I encourage you to take some silent time and write about your experience. Don’t just journal about where we went and what we visited. Write about what’s happening inside of you. As regrets and mistakes come forward in our consciousness—and they’re inside all of us—just keep handing them over to God: “God, I’m being judgmental again. I’m being angry again. I’m being impatient again.” Then when you go to your journal, try as best you can to write down your interior experiences: “How am I feeling? What’s God saying to me in prayer? What am I hearing?” These are all disciplines to deepen the quality of our listening.

Finally, I ask all of us to pray for the freedom to be released from cynicism and judgment. We’re going to encounter people who do and say things differently. If we move into “sophistication,” we will lose the childlike spirit that Jesus talks about. A pilgrim must be like a child who can approach everything with an attitude of wonder and awe and faith. Let’s pray for wonder. Let’s pray for awe. Let’s pray for desire, or better “the desire to desire,” and ask God to take away our cynicism.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 

“As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. 

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.

5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

For ecumenical leader and author Wes Granberg-Michaelson, pilgrimage invites passionate spirituality:

Pilgrims move in two directions at the same time—an outward direction toward a holy destination and an inward journey seeking an encounter with the sacred. Two of the best academic scholars of pilgrimages, Victor and Edith Turner, explain it in this one sentence: “Pilgrimage may be thought of as extroverted mysticism, just as mysticism is introverted pilgrimage.” [1] Pilgrimages, they suggest, were, and are, no walk in the park, or plain, or mountain. Embarking on such a journey, we become untethered not just from our physical normalcy. These uncertain, trusting steps also move us out of our spiritual familiarity. The pilgrim is invited not only to walk out of boxes of dogmatic beliefs, but also to walk away from practices of comfortable spirituality.

Consider historically the life of peasants or serfs in medieval Europe who were tied to specific places—a manor, and a particular piece of land. Religious life was likewise confined to a local parish, with its repeated, routine practices. As pilgrimage opportunities began to be possible for a wide range of people, their journeys liberated them toward places unknown, with spiritual intensity. Pilgrimage sites were places where miracles had occurred. The bones of saints were living; the apparition of Mary created a rarified space. Healings occurred, continuing the miraculous nature of these sites.

As journeys to Jerusalem became insurmountable or impossible, numerous pilgrimage sites sprang forth throughout Europe. Yet those embarking on pilgrimages faced clear and present dangers. They were walking into liminal space, with a familiar past of place and spirit left behind and a future promise of spiritual power, wedded to tangible, material things, in the distance.

In their own context, this was a reckless spirituality, a form of extroverted mysticism…. For most, this was a once-in-a-lifetime embodied quest of spiritual abandonment. In the words of the Turners, “pilgrimage was the great liminal experience of the religious life.” [2]

For today’s pilgrim it can be the same. A pilgrimage is a rejection of modernity’s expectations and assumptions about time, place, perception, satisfaction, speed, predictability, and the material world. As in ancient times, motives for contemporary pilgrimages are mixed. Lines between pilgrimage and tourism become blurred for some while breaks in employment prompt others to a pilgrimage more than a thirst for embodied forms of holiness. Yet pathways that move simultaneously in inward and outward directions prove irresistible to throngs roaming pilgrimage paths today.

The embodied movement of pilgrimage is an opportunity to step outside our habitual rhythms with God: 

The Spirit yearns to break out and to break open our old practices, our protective shells of comfortable spirituality, connecting our inner selves more deeply to God’s love and to God’s world. Your soul no longer stays still. It’s moving with God in the world, and moving toward God, revealed in signs or shrines or saints or surroundings. The pilgrim’s walking body holds incarnate this inner journey of the soul.

Always a Perfect Moment

This week we explore the contemplative tradition of pilgrimage. In 1983, Father Richard Rohr went on a teaching pilgrimage to the sacred sites of Lourdes, Assisi, Rome, and several locations in the Holy Land. Richard’s first talk took place in the great Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Lourdes, France. This basilica stands above the Grotto of Massabielle, the place where Mary is said to have appeared in 1858 to a teenaged girl named Bernadette Soubirous (who was named a saint in 1933). Here is how Richard introduced the topic: 

Through the centuries, pilgrimage of some type is found in many religions. Pilgrimage took the form of the Jewish exodus, Islam’s Hajj to Mecca, vision quests, walkabouts, and classic heroic journeys about leaving home. In the fourth century, many Christians began to travel to Jerusalem. Each century took on a new form; the interesting thing is the spirituality that went behind it. It was an exercise in letting go, a search for wonder, a constant discovery of the new. It kept older religions from becoming staid and expecting God only in the familiar and customary. Pilgrimage accustomed people to change and growth.

So, major Christian pilgrimages would go to Jerusalem (later travelers would visit saints’ shrine or relics) and oftentimes they’d go for a whole year or more. They traveled at great expense and with great difficulty, and their goal would be to reach the River Jordan. Then, at the River Jordan, they would dive in the water and swim across. This was of course a way of re-experiencing the baptism that Jesus experienced.

To help us to understand pilgrimage in its ideal sense, it has to do with the sanctification of both time and place. Let me give you a mantra that the New Jerusalem community [Father Richard’s spiritual community before he founded the Center for Action and Contemplation] have come to know. The mantra is “This moment or this place is as perfect as it can be.” Our temptation is to always look to the next moment to be more perfect, the next place, and then the next moment or place.

You see, we are always disappointed in what we actually have. We are always rushing into the future. The reason we’re rushing into the future is because we’re not experiencing a wholeness in the present. And when we haven’t grasped the present, we always live under an illusion. It is an illusion that the next moment or place is going to be better. When I get around this corner, when I see this church, when I get to Jerusalem, when I get to the hotel—whatever it might be. But pilgrimage helps us see that attitude is essentially wrong. As long as we think happiness is around the corner, it means that we have not grasped happiness yet. Because happiness is given in this moment and this place, and this moment and place are as perfect as they can be.

Pilgrims, Not Tourists

We continue sharing excerpts from Father Richard’s 1983 talks on pilgrimage. In this presentation in Lourdes, France, Richard offers some historical background on the practical actions that pilgrims had to take before they underwent a spiritual pilgrimage. 

By the high Middle Ages, there were all kind of books written for pilgrims. These were spiritual books guiding pilgrims as to how to prepare themselves. Preparation was required before they went on pilgrimage.

First of all, you had to make amends with everyone you had ever wronged. Also, if you went on pilgrimage holding any kind of unforgiveness, it could not be a good pilgrimage. You couldn’t leave your town until you’d forgiven everyone who’d ever wronged you. Certainly, this is an attitude that we can pray for at the beginning of any pilgrimage: that God would keep our hearts open and loving, because a pilgrimage can’t just be a tourist trip. The meaning of a pilgrimage is an interior journey. Primarily, it’s an interior journey enacted exteriorly.

Richard shares his hope that his fellow pilgrims embark upon such an interior journey: 

When we return home in three weeks or less, if no interior journey has happened, we really haven’t made a pilgrimage. Understand? We’ve just been tourists. We’ve traveled around and said, “I saw this, and I saw that, and I bought this,” and so forth. But that’s what a tourist does, not a pilgrim. And God has called us on pilgrimage.

Secondly, and a practical, interesting thing, is that if they were going to go on pilgrimage, pilgrims had first to ask permission of their wife, husband, and family. The idea was that they had to leave everything in right relationship at home. If they had any material debts, they also had to pay those before they left. They couldn’t go on pilgrimage until their spiritual and physical debts were paid, and they had permission from all the right people.

Next, they had to go to confession before leaving. Sometime in the course of a pilgrimage, celebrating some kind of reconciliation was deemed very appropriate. Again, there’s that cleansing, that letting go. Perhaps those of us who’ve already been down to the Grotto [1] have seen the basin of water on the far end with the words that Mary spoke to Bernadette. It states, “Go wash your face and cleanse your soul.” What a symbol of reconciliation! It’s a prayer. Above all else, pilgrimage is praying with your body, and it’s praying with your feet. It’s an exterior prayer, and the exterior prayer keeps calling you into the interior prayer.

If you find yourself in a monastery do not go to another place, for that will harm you a great deal. Just as the bird who abandons the eggs she was sitting on prevents them from hatching, so the monk or the nun grows cold and their faith dies, when they go from one place to another.
—Amma Syncletica, Life of Blessed Syncletica

Episcopal priest and writer Mary Earle finds inspiration for spiritual practice in the sayings of a Desert Mother known as Syncletica of Alexandria:

Amma Syncletica is counseling us to not run from ourselves. She is encouraging us to stay faithfully with whatever new life is being hatched within us….

She is addressing a universal human temptation—to miss our lives by living completely on the surface. After all, our culture encourages competition and ambition, and we are highly mobile. If we are not careful, that mobility can create a kind of rootlessness that will injure us and those with whom we live and move and have our being. This is the kind of rootlessness that is internal, that is caused by our not staying with anything long enough to grow deep roots….

In the desert, men and women were counseled, “Go to your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” [1] … The cell was a sacred space, a place in which a woman could be with herself and the divine Presence and listen. The cell was a place of divine encounter and of ongoing, daily experience of being immersed in God’s presence.

The wisdom of the desert tempers our instinct to avoid boredom and discomfort:

Amma Syncletica’s [bird] metaphor speaks directly to one of the dilemmas of the spiritual life—that of coming to terms with the plain old ordinariness of spiritual practice and the life of prayer, of the whole of life becoming prayer…. We are enticed by a variety of means to leave our “eggs” and simply move continually from one interest to another. The result is that we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to bring forth new life. The “eggs” die because they are not tended. We miss the deeper life of the Spirit because we are constantly moving from one interest to another rather than focusing on one thing.

Our ancient mothers knew that when boredom threatened, it could very well be the outward and visible sign of God’s secret, hidden, inner work within the human heart and soul. Consequently, they emphasized staying in the cell, in the little room of daily living, and letting that cell be their teacher….

Staying in the cell, or “sitting on the eggs,” means noticing our appetite for overstimulation. The cell teaches us to slow down, … to notice what is right in front of us. The wisdom the desert mothers offer us is that by staying with ourselves, with our inner ups and downs, with our hurts and our fears, we will bring forth the new life that God is creating within us.

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Sarah Young

Faithful God, Morning by morning You awaken me and open my understanding to Your will. Thank You for always being mindful of me. It’s comforting to know that You never sleep, so You’re able to watch over me while I am sleeping. Then, when I wake up, You are still with me. As I become increasingly aware of Your Presence, You help me become more alert—combing out the tangles in my sleepy thoughts. I respond to Your Love-call by drawing near to You. I love to spend time enjoying Your Presence and nourishing my soul with Your Word. I’ve found that time devoted to You blesses and strengthens me immensely. You open my understanding to Your Word—enabling me to comprehend Scripture better and apply it to my life. Please help me discern Your will clearly as I make plans for this day. When I walk alongside You, seeking to do Your will, You empower me to handle whatever comes my way. Lord, teach me how to trust in You at all times—in all circumstances. In Your trustworthy Name, Jesus, Amen

ISAIAH 50:4 TLB; The Lord God has given me his words of wisdom so that I may know what I should say to all these weary ones. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will.

PSALM 139:17–18 NLT; How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me! 

JAMES 4:8 NKJV; Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

PSALM 62:8 Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 65). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Experiencing Our Own Deserts

Orthodox author John Chryssavgis considers the desert as a symbol of both “deserted-ness” and God’s presence:

Anyone who has experienced some aspect of deserted-ness, that is to say some form of loneliness, or else some form of brokenness, breakdown or break-up—whether emotionally, physically, or socially—will be able to make the necessary connections. Each of us has known times of drought; dry and arid moments when we await refreshment and rain, when we wait for hope and life.…

The desert, while accursed [in the Scriptures], was never seen as an empty region. It was a place that was full of action.… It was a space that provided an opportunity, and even a calling, for divine vision. In the desert, you were invited to shake off all forms of idolatry, all kinds of earthly limitations, in order to behold—or, rather, to be held before—an image of the heavenly God. There, you were confronted with another reality, with the presence of a boundless God, whose grace was without any limits at all. You could never avoid that perspective of revelation. After all, you cannot hide in the desert; there is no room for lying or deceit there. Your very self is reflected in the dry desert, and you are obliged to face up to this self. Anything else would constitute a dangerous illusion, not a divine icon….

The desert is a place of spiritual revolution, not of personal retreat. It is a place of inner protest, not outward peace. It is a place of deep encounter, not of superficial escape. It is a place of repentance, not recuperation. Living in the desert does not mean living without people; it means living for God.

Chryssavgis encourages us to face desert experiences instead of running away:  

One does not have to move to the geographical location of the wilderness in order to find God. Yet, if you do not have to go to the desert, you do have to go through the desert…. The desert is a necessary stage on the spiritual journey. To avoid it would be harmful. To dress it up or conceal it may be tempting; but it also proves destructive in the spiritual path.

Ironically, you do not have to find the desert in your life; it normally catches up with you. Everyone does go through the desert…. It may be in the form of some suffering, or emptiness, or breakdown, or breakup, or divorce, or any kind of trauma that occurs in our life. Dressing this desert up through our addictions or attachments—to material goods, or money, or food, or drink, or success, or obsessions, or anything else we may care to turn toward or may find available to depend upon—will delay the utter loneliness and the inner fearfulness of the desert experience. If we go through this experience involuntarily, then it can be both overwhelming and crushing. If, however, we accept to undergo this experience voluntarily, then it can prove both constructive and liberating.