Leaving images, advice, guides of all kind, the pilgrim of today walks following a straight line, seeking encounters, all those who are afraid or indifferent of abroad.
PERICARD-MEA, Denise
docteur es-lettres,
spécialiste de saint Jacques
pèlerine 1982, 1991 |
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fondation david parou saint-jacques |
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| 26 March 2005 |
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| CHANGING FORMS BUT ALWAYS A SEPARATION |
Pilgrimage represents a kind of temporary migration that has been practised since immemorial time all over the world and by all religions. Men and women, alone or in groups, leaving their homes, set off to symbolic or mythical places. Longing for sacredness? Fond of the absolute? Looking for a spiritual power? The last of the nomads? Reminiscence of the times when people would join together around their necropolis? The need to change perspectives? Undoubtedly a little of each. Originally, the word "pilgrim" is the exact synonym of "stranger" and "traveler"; starting with the year 1000, it stands for "traveler heading to a distant sanctuary with a religious purpose", at the same time preserving its former meanings.
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The Christian pilgrimage is connected with different types of walks that appear in the Bible: Abraham leaving his house in order to obey God's calling, the Jews' forty years of wandering through the desert longing to return to Israel, Jesus' peregrinations during His public life. Conceived as a perpetual wandering, this pilgrimage started being practised in the VIIth century by some monks, most of them Irish monks, who thought of themselves as strangers on earth. Then, other Christians followed in the footsteps of Jesus and his companions, the apostles, conscious of the fact that life itself was a pilgrimage, a voyage on earth before reaching Heaven.
In the Middle Ages, pilgrimage was at the heart of human life. It combines devotion, celebration, meeting other people and also commercial activities. But in time the word has evolved, meaning not only traveling to a distant place where one implicitly becomes "the stranger", but also walking to a familiar sanctuary, close to one's home. In all situations, however, pilgrimage means a breaking off with everyday life.
Nowadays the term has contracted meaning. The pilgrimage to Mecca and those to the Virgin Mary's sanctuaries are nothing but acts of devotion. The Church has its part in this evolution, where the tendency is to see in the pilgrim the devotee only. The means of transport have gradually shortened distances, causing the "long-term" pilgrimage to vanish; one is hardly a stranger after an hour's flight. People travel with their families or among friends, without having to leave behind their everyday life in this house on wheels that is the car or the coach.
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| ON FOOT TOWARDS COMPOSTELA |
The pilgrim walking to Compostella for weeks is trying to experience the feelings of his ancestors whilst recreating a whole personal, sometimes stereotyped, imagery: being a pilgrim involves penitence. He has to suffer, to abandon his personal comfort, to accept harsh conditions of life, to endure deprivation? Once home, he finds himself among other pilgrims, some carrying along, maybe without even knowing it, a kind of initiation rite: following in the footsteps of their predecessors, suffering? just like a ?hazing? imposed by the ancestors or by tradition.
Is treading through mud part of being a pilgrim? Is struggling on impossible roads a must? Does begging for bread add anything to the value of the attempt? There is no trace of such compulsions in old traveling tales. St. Benedict?s rule even warns against competing when it comes to ascetic practices (mind the sin of pride!). More, pretending to be poor and asking others (hosts, town inhabitants, townhalls, parishes) to supply to their needs is completely out of place since there are so many real misfortunates. Walking (or riding a bike or a horse), in the heat or in the rain, a heavy sack on their back, isn?t this quite an effort? Why take on more hardships? And there is another penitence: the indifferent looks cast by the rest, something that no one can escape. Humiliation and humiliation again! So then why search for more? That is for each person to decide. But without imposing it on others.
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A larger perspective is required. The pilgrim is the one who starts walking. Who to? Where to? This is for each one to answer. No one else will do it for them, neither the former pilgrims, nor the associations. The purpose of these associations is to inform, to restore confidence and to offer choices without imposing them. They are trying to welcome everybody and provide answers to their spiritual doubts. Moreover, with no intention of any missionary work, they consider it their duty to reveal and explain St. Jacob?s message, since it is his tomb that the pilgrims ultimately head for.
They claim that each pilgrimage has to be prepared and needs to have its own price and that nothing comes ready-made. The pilgrim, they say, can choose his itineraries and can balance his efforts. He is not a walker par excellence. He gradually builds up his pilgrimage after first considering his abilities; there is nothing better than country roads when walking, they say, but asphalt hasn?t hurt anybody?s feet if wearing the right shoes; and besides, it allows faster walking. They also claim that going on foot to Compostella is not an extraordinary achievement (it only makes them humble!); and that breaking the journey too often spoils the charm. However, every kind of pilgrimage is given credit, in the hope that it will ultimately lead the pilgrim-tourist to the main road, to the crucial end where from everyone returns a different person.
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| SO WHAT CAN BE DONE TODAY? |
Putting behind him images, advice and various guides, today?s pilgrim walks straight on, searching for the opportunity to meet others, all those who are either scared or left indifferent by the appearance of this stranger. He is the one who, humiliating himself, asks for the way or for an address. While walking on, he will learn the conditions of life from the regions that he gradually leaves behind. Far from following the way taken by his fellows and hiding among them, far from trying to get away by taking the bus, he will courageously choose the industrial outskirts (quite an opportunity to find out more about the industrial aspects of the area), he will venture on the national roads and will be sad to see all the villages disturbed by traffic, he will come across department stores (selling drinks, food, tools and clothes)?
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Denise Péricard-Méa
pilgrimage 1982, Bourges-Santiago, on horse with her children (14 and 17 years old)
pilgrimage 2001, Lectoure-Santiago, by foot through Saint-Adrien tunnel
and ways of Cordillière Cantabrique (1100 km among them 1000 asphalt no more 100 km uneasy)
illustrations : Manola Salvador, Guy Dutey, Louis Mollaret, Madeleine Griselin
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