Pilgrim Ways

Introduction.

On the last day of the last year of the last millennium I made a short visit to Glastonbury where Christianity made its first mark on our islands. As we stood in the ruins of the Abbey my daughter, Marianne, asked me what happened to the buildings and to the monks. As we wandered around Glastonburyâ€&#x;s high street, brimming over with shops full of New Age memorabilia and artifacys of the occult, she might also have asked what had happened to Christianity.

Her question prompted the idea of writing something about the holy places of Catholic Britain and Ireland. This is not meant to be a walk down memory lane but an aid in planning our journeys of faith. Being made whole is the purpose of the Christian journey. The destination is to be brought into harmony and into peace with God. Pilgrimage often brings the grace to deal with all the things life throws at us and to prepare for death as well.

Pilgrimage is not about processing around broken stones, however ancient and venerable their provenance may be. But the broken stones can become a metaphor for our own broken lives. Being in these holy places reminds us that we are not alone: that others have travelled these highways and byways before; that all pilgrimages have a final destination; and that always on the road with us is the unknown, unrecognised pilgrim who first appeared on the road to Emmaus. The sacred places exist in every part of these islands. Like the sacred places within each of us they can become overgrown and neglected and may need to be rediscovered. At the conclusion of his remarks at his Westminster inauguration, Archbishop Cormac Murphy Oâ€&#x;Connor told his congregation that his uncle, a priest, had always quoted the words of Isaiah at family gatherings: "remember the rock from which you were hewn."

Pilgrimages, for families, individuals and parishes, take us back to the rock from which we were hewn. They also help us to answer the question my daughter put to me at Glastonbury.

That question about the fate of the monks of Glastonbury reminded me of something which a twentieth-century monk, Thomas Merton, wrote in his Seven Storey Mountain. He wondered whether any of the picnickers sitting down to their sandwiches and thermos flasks in the ruin of one of the great monastic houses ever wondered what went on inside these buildings.

In writing this book I had the chance to revisit a number of sites and to visit others for the first time. As two of my children and one of their friends enjoyed a picnic against the stunning back-drop of FountainsAbbey I remembered Mertonâ€&#x;s observation . I hope that this inadequate book will provide a few of the answers; that it will be a modest contribution to the important task of passing on the beliefs we cherish and the tradition we guard to the generation which follows us. Perhaps it may also point the modern pilgrim towards the contemporary staging posts which will provoke us to ask deeper questions about ourselves, the lives we live, and our relationship with God.