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“He who would valiant be
'gainst all disaster,
let him in constancy
follow the Master.
There's no discouragement
shall make him once relent
his first avowed intent
to be a pilgrim.”
~ John Bunyan, from The Pilgrim’s Progress.
When I read reviews in late-2024 about two books written by the late Pope Francis (Light in the Night, and Faith is a Journey), both on the topic of life as pilgrimage, I immediately recognized my long-familar personal theme. Right away, I purchased both books, reading them carefully during my daily work commutes and coffee breaks. Consoling, inspiring, and relatable words are especially rare these days. Commemorating a quarter-century, a presiding Pope dedicates a year of jubilee to a motif, and for 2025 it was for individuals and communities to live their many-faceted lives as pilgrims of hope. The metaphor of pilgrimage centers around the intertwined voyage of spiritual and physical living, a one-way travel toward eternity. The grand journey happens with tangible and often small measures. Being so profoundly interior, each person determines how they signify progress in their journey. A way to do that is to write in a journal, and I view mine as a combination of itinerary, narrative, and means to look ahead. We each have our vital landmarks- geographic and spiritual. Our prayers and hopes generate our motions.
Pilgrimage as a practice is not new to me, as many readers of my years of essays know, but each experience is entirely new. Discovering ways to creatively apply the pilgrimage theme to a year of intense commitments and constant work is itself something new to me. Multiple “manifestations” blending into the broader theme, made for a year’s book of chapters. Journeying to destinations of significance, I honored every request for prayers from each person that asked. As well, I wholeheartedly brought my own- for the wellbeing of loved ones, for myself, and for better employment. When asked about wanderlust, my response is the journeying spirit is as much about change-of-scenery as it is for soul-wellness. There is a general overwhelming psychological sickness which has permeated this world. Considering current events, every workaday sunrise witnesses a threshold drop, prompting major sectors of the world’s population to submerge into various escapisms. By contrast, I’ve found periodic, reflective retreats to be healthful and replete with aesthetic inspiration. And learning. Places of pilgrimage draw people from many regions and of many ages; quite spontaneously, listening to one another, there are conversations about reading, artistic expression, and spiritual growth. The stuff of conscientious life. Alas, the job market is abysmal, most career professions unstable, and employers bewilderingly fickle. Millennia ago, an exasperated crowd asked John the Baptist, “What are we to do?” His reply, having also known places of desperation, was essentially to broaden one’s view of life: Give away your extra provisions; look after each other. It’s not a stretch to add: Help each other find peaceful housing and appropriate work. Hold the door for the person behind you, yield to the right-of-way, don’t forget to say please and thanks. Pilgrimage reminds us that on the one-way voyage to consummation, we see that we live this life but once. To sanctify the everyday is to recognize pilgrimage in the commonplace.
Weston Priory
My year of pilgrimage appropriately began at my beloved Weston Priory, in Vermont’s Green Mountains. My first-ever retreat was there among these brilliant and down-to-earth Benedictine monks, in 1994. I lived there for nearly two months in 1999, and I owe to them the highlights of my spiritual formation. As nurturing friendships lead to more kindred spirits, in 2001 the Weston monks introduced me to their brethren of the Taizé monastery in France. On this recent string of days, shortly before Advent, the Vermont landscape was snowcapped and russet. My room, named for Saint Joseph, had a view of Mount Okemo. “The Brothers’ services are hearteningly beautiful,” I wrote in my journal, referring to their homegrown sung liturgies. Comprehension demands patience. Brother Michael said, “Our future is open, and we create our future together though humility.” He added, “Scripture is living, and not a ‘dead letter.” Brother Elias added, “When we are giving, we find there is more; blessing is for us to pass along.” My drive back from the mountains was accompanied by gratitude for all I saw and heard.
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Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey
As Advent submerged into winter darkness, I strung together a week of paid-time-off, and drove to Mount Saint Mary’s, which is in southeastern Massachusetts. This was my second sojourn with the Cistercian community in Wrentham. Very thankfully, the weather’s snowy calmness matched the peacefulness of the countryside. Much as with Weston Priory, the community composes its own music, and lives ancient practices in vernacular and inclusive modernity, with barely any symbolism. Nature, silence, and chant are in themselves representative of contemplative life. I had brought the book, In Conversation With God along for the retreat, within which Carvajal wrote: “Our own personal history is full of signs, so that we do not mistake the way.” It took until the midpoint of the week for me to begin to slow down and rest. Getting outdoors with camera in hand allowed me to appreciate and perceive my surroundings. Plenty of walking always helps with the winding-down. I noticed how my attention was drawn by the paths I saw. With the community and various fellow pilgrims, I enjoyed reinforcing conversations about the jubilee year of being peaceful presences to those in our midsts.
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Boston
This time, I extended my customary writing and study residency at Beacon Hill Friends House and at the Boston Athenaeum, by also making this sojourn a pilgrimage to sacred locations in the city. The month of April exemplifies renewal, and even in neighborhoods away from the Boston Public Garden the city is replete with budding branches, magnolia trees, and windowboxed daffodils. Visits on Beacon Hill regularly include sanctified destinations such as the National Shrine of Saint Anthony, the Church of the Advent, and the Quaker sanctuary at the Friends House, I threaded in two pilgrimage landmarks in the Back Bay: the Franciscan Chapel, and the Saint Clement Eucharistic Shrine. The latter was the city’s official Jubilee Year pilgrimage site, and this was my first visit to the large and ornate church. Upon exiting outdoors amidst a number of attendees, a man holding a phone picturing a map asked me if this was Saint Clement’s. After assuring him that he found the place, we had a great conversation on the steps; he was visiting from the west coast and wanted to see pilgrimage sites around Boston. Knowing the city as I do- and the topic- I gave him recommendations that included the precise subway and trolley stops for each sanctuary. We wished one another well, as he entered the lofty silence of the church, and I stepped down to the midday congested bustle of Boylston Street, my own pilgrimage winding alongside exuberant street musicians outside the Berklee College of Music. Quite a wondrous sum-total for my written reflections later that day, which still had plenty of time for more adventures.
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National Shrine of the Divine Mercy
Through the months back at work following the Boston sojourn, I was able to respond to the opportunity for a week’s pilgrimage in mid-July at the Divine Mercy Shrine, which is in the heart of the Berkshires. The unusually hot summer displayed some extremes in the mountainous region, with sweltering days, late sunsets, and dramatic rainstorms. Aware that I’d be navigating roads through summer tourism season, I gave myself plenty of time to reach Stockbridge. Indeed there were plenty of traffic stoppages along way, but I had music for the road trip, and a small Divine Mercy icon in my car’s console. As things worked out, I set forth fifteen minutes earlier than planned, and shut off the engine- over four hours later- at my destination, fifteen minutes before Mass. This was the monthly special service for Jubilee Year pilgrims, and I was doubly grateful to have made it- and to have arrived. I know the place very well, though for this pilgrimage I could see how the entire community responded to the Vatican’s designation of the shrine as a world destination for the extraordinary year. Contrasting all the activity in the town center in Stockbridge, the shrine itself was quiet enough to hear the wind in the trees. Staying within the community, I enjoyed encouraging conversations with various members of the Marian order. One of the Brothers noticed my typewriting, and that led to a visit of kindred spirits. I had timed my retreat to parallel the observance of the commemoration of Saint Bonaventure; it was great to be able to speak with members of the community about him. I had brought my studies with me, reading the Breviloquium. The Marian community added my prayers to theirs, and I appreciate their sincerity and seriousness. As I was packing my car to return to Maine, an elderly priest walked over to me and gave me his blessing. The perfect sendoff for the road.
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Maine
True to belief and practice, one’s pilgrimage of trust on earth is paced throughout life. It’s the daily trudge to and from bus stops; it’s also carefully advancing- in those same work shoes- toward receiving sacraments. Lent and Passover are pilgrimages through geography, time, and spirit. All forward motion, and chronologically at the very least. Waystations along the physical pilgrimage includes sanctuaries and memorials, and my steps connect them. The words of the Divine Hours that accompany my thirty-minute lunch breaks have been with me overseas and back, on the road, and when I can manage some unstructured time on weekends. Punctuating the year of intentional pilgrimages include sanctuaries that are close to where I live and work. Good Shepherd Parish, in Saco, provides an Adoration chapel which is a peaceful oasis for contemplative prayer. Less than twenty miles from Portland, I can easily get there when I have an afternoon off. And I make this a pilgrimage, bringing breviary and chaplet (in French and English)- always sensing the strong pull of the Spirit. The parish church itself displayed imagery and texts about the Jubilee Year of Pilgrimage, encouraging all who visit. Another place of nearby pilgrimage is the Saint Anthony Franciscan Monastery, in Kennebunkport. In milder weather, walking the wooded and coastal paths is as contemplative as absorbing the outdoor grotto. The Franciscans’ tradition of honoring nature is clearly evident throughout. Having such close destinations shifts attention away from physical distance, and more toward sanctified time.
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Mount Saint Mary’s
Although I hadn’t planned how the year would comprise these locations and their sequencing, my year of pilgrimage rather organically fell into place. I really noticed this, when I glanced back at the first half of the year and received a heartwarming invitation to return to Wrentham for a week during Advent. The Cistercian community welcomed me early in the year, and this recent sojourn took place at the close of the Jubilee year. My third time of travelling to their corner of Massachusetts, and being immersed in their antiphonal sung liturgies suddenly had the ring of familiarity. We now recognize each other, and good conversations follow- including the topic of being bearers of persevering hope. As well, now I know the highways and winding roads from memory, and can better comprehend the flow of the services. The year of pilgrimage took me hither-and-yon, all in New England- yet at once familiar and otherworldly, rotating the temporal of logistics with the ex temporé of response to the moment. I recall hearing an elder Quaker say that, “the Christian life is rough on the feet, but good on the soul.”
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Below: Kennebunkport, Maine
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