23.08.2018
‘On a Pilgrimage We Are All Disciples’ – Archbishop Jackson Reflects on Dublin’s WMOF Pilgrim Walk
The Pilgrim Walk continues until this Saturday, August 25.
As part of the World Meeting of Families, which is being held for the first time in its history in Dublin this week, city dwellers, visitors and pilgrims from across the globe have the opportunity to take part in the Dublin Camino Pilgrim Walk.
The Pilgrim Walk incorporates seven churches in the heart of the city, including St Michan’s Church of Ireland Church church and everyone is welcome join it. The map of the participating churches may be found at: http://www.dublindiocese.ie/7-church-pilgrim-walk-for-wmof2018/
As is the way with pilgrimages, those who complete this special journey will have a Pilgrim Passport to commemorate their experiences in via/on the way. The very language of way itself binds us into an experience with Jesus Christ who, as St John’s Gospel tells us, is the way, the truth and the life. The way can be both the Road to Calvary and the Road to Emmaus. The World Meeting of Families Pilgrim Walk has given us the imaginative scope to make our journey one with Christ on the busy streets of Dublin in August 2018.
Unlike other pilgrimages where you tend to walk from A to Z, this is a pilgrimage where you may start from any of the participating churches and you may complete the pilgrimage itself all in one go or over the course of the week. It is fluid rather than static. Movement and choice lie at its heart as well as meeting God and new neighbour.
I myself completed it in two days, visiting the churches north of the river on Saturday and those south of the river on Monday. It struck me as a gracious act of ecumenical inclusivity that Archbishop Martin chose to launch this pilgrimage in St Michan’s Church of Ireland church and we moved naturally and easily to St Michan’s Roman Catholic church on the first stage. There is one God, one patron, two traditions walking together, sharing the everyday witness and devotion of people in the heart of the inner city.
Each church building and community made significant effort to welcome pilgrims as friends and to welcome us to the life of the church and the parish community. The history was available to all but there was more to it than that. Lay people and clergy alike welcomed people they had never met before and probably would never see again. This is part of the chance encounters that make a pilgrimage work, whether it be in the churches or on the pavements where you instinctively begin to start a conversation about anything with someone who is also walking. This is part of the urgency that pilgrimage offers back to an overwhelmingly sedentary church.
I am glad that I had the opportunity to participate in The Pilgrim Walk. I met people I had never met before. I entered churches I had never gone into before. I found the experience of different churches where people were going about eveyday tasks comforting and reassuring. In one church a priest weas clearing away after a recent celebration of Holy Communion; in another people were concluding their participation in the sacrament of penance; in yet another the regular monthly Mass around John Sullivan was in full flight. Devotion is normal in all churches and in different ways. My thanks go to the organizers and my reflection is that pilgrimage stretches the legs and the spiritual imagination at the same time. On a pilgrimage we are all disciples.
The Most Reverend Michael Jackson August 20th 2018