As you read this in your easy, upholstered pews, yours truly is treading the tortured path towards the Shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela, praying in trepidation for the salvation of his battered soul. Spare a thought, please, for all pilgrims! This harrowing experience has led me to some profound reflection on life in general, on the universe in particular, and on tourism with contempt! Over-exposure to a beating sun, and to feckless company, does tend to unhinge the mind. So read on....lest you too...

There is a world of difference between a tourist and a pilgrim. From the point of view of the tourist, the journey is a necessary evil, a penance to be unwillingly endured. The tourist arrives at the airport with his own world in a suitcase. (For the sake of authenticity, I will persist with the male form of the pronoun). The tourist climbs up a gangway into a bullet-shaped metal box. He is going on a Package Holiday. So he straps himself into a bucket seat; he hands his life and destiny over to a person he has never before, and will never again, lay eyes on. He is hurled blindly through the air, sometimes faster than the speed of sound. To add insult to injury, he is fed artificial food to distract him from his precarious plight. Speed is all. In fact, if you want to get there really fast, you will pay enormous money for a seat on Concorde, and even them you are expected to test the tyres. The journey must be got out of the way as quickly as possible. The destination is his only interest.

The tourist will spend the next two weeks lying on a beach underneath a blazing sun; He will sweat like a pig, and often roast like one. For these two weeks, his energies will be devoted exclusively to minimising the damage that the sun can do and to keeping the irritating sand out of every imaginable crevice and cavity!! This is known in theological circles as ‘the principle of double effect’.

A variety of strategies are employed to achieve this end. A simple umbrella can be secured for a small fee. But, more often than not, the sun is kept at bay through rubbing a foul-smelling lotion into the burning skin. (The pungency of this odious liquid is measured in factors and is actually indicated on the bottle). But this stuff has a tendency to make its way to the eyes and to sting the life out of the victim. Magnet-like, it attracts the irritating sand.

So with tears streaming down his face, wearing a thick coating of sand, the tourist proclaims to all who are willing to listen that he is really enjoying himself. In all probability, the one he is trying to convince most is himself.

And what is in it for him after all this torture? Where is his reward? The reward is in the tan!! And this trophy will only be recognised when he manifests again among his own people, ‘like Lazarus newly-risen’.! This bronzed Adonis will return to strut his transformed bodywork proudly among his sodden, rain-soaked people. What are the dynamics operating here? Does he wear the tan as the Medieval Pilgrim wore the cockle shell in his lapel proclaiming to all and sundry that the had made the arduous journey to the Shrine of St. James at Compostela? Does the reward lie in the travel of the tan? It is difficult to know. The Medieval Pilgrim certainly knew that the reward was not the cockle shell.

In some cases, even the destination has a limited impact on the tourist. Take the American tourist in Kenya, for example. His first night will be spent in the luxurious American Hilton Hotel in Nairobi. The next day the real touring begins. He will be driven through the country in an American four wheel-drive Land Rover, progressing through that country via a chain of American Holiday Inn Hotels. The parts of Kenya that he visits will be determined entirely by the location of these hotels. He is insulated from the full African experience by the creature comforts of his own homeland. In all probability, he will return to Boston or New York three weeks later. He will boast to his mates of having done Africa, and pronounce authoritatively on the dangers lurking in the African jungle.

Contrast this with the attitude and behaviour of this humble pilgrim. He approached the journey in an entirely different frame of mind. To him, the journey was as important, if not more important, than the destination. He will pass the night in one of the many Spartan pilgrim hostels that stud the pilgrim way. We eat from a common pot, sleep in common dormitories, sharing everything, including the lice and fleas. The only protection available against the fleas is the rabbit’s foot hanging around our necks. The hope is that the fleas will have the good sense to congregate together in the rabbit’s foot and leave us to our much-needed sleep!

Chaucer, in his famous Canterbury Tales, has prepared me for this journey. His motley crew of pilgrims travelled only from London the Canterbury, to pray at the shrine of the Martyred Thomas a Beckett. His characters are replicated on this pilgrimage. Like his crew, my fellow-pilgrims bear the stamp of their background. Those who have failed to shake off the familiar habits of their class are gleefully satirised. For example, we have here too an angry Miller, a proud Prioress, a vainglorious Guildsman, a gluttonous Summoner, an avaricious Pardoner, and, thank God, a lecherous, sexy Wife of Bath! So even the harried pilgrim has his little compensations! Till next week, adios! D.L.

This piece was written two weeks ago by our pilgrim, who is now is Spain. In the context of the horrific events of the past week, some of the words written in jest have developed their own sad irony.

PRAYER WORDS

PRAYER is for a Christian what training is for an athlete. Those who would achieve some insight into the nature of spirituality, and who can therefore begin to know something of the blessedness of God, must practise prayer regularly in order to foster the personal culture within which the presence of God may be recognised. Spiritual fitness increases with each attempt at prayer. But on what kind of basis or model should it be fashioned? What are the appropriate forms?

In earlier religious understandings, as reflected in parts of the Old Testament, for example, prayer was plainly a sanctified version of the approach a supplicant might make to an earthly sovereign. That is not to say that prayer itself was, as a consequence, earthly, since sacred and secular authority were not separated as they now are, and the honour paid to a temporal lord may indeed have been an appropriate model for constructing an approach to the eternal one. But our terms of reference today are quite different. How should we approach God?

Traditional prayer comprised worship first: the sovereign was addressed through a rehearsal of his power and attributes, to which was added a list of requests, the intercessions. Modern people have difficulty with the first of these - there is nothing in our secularised understanding both of temporal authority and of religion itself which acts as a satisfactory model for verbalising our sense of the divine sovereignty. We tend to make do instead with exclamations which simulate joy.

The second element in traditional prayer is what most modern people actually call prayer: requests to God, usually concerning matters of self-interest such as health and security. These clearly raise problems of a potential conflict, between individual desires and the will of Providence, which are allowed to remain unresolved. But quite apart from that, what is lacking in the practice of prayer by so many people today is a contemplative element: listening to God, silence.

Prayer is not necessarily an emotional experience. Listening to God is frequently unaccompanied by any individual sensation of the divine presence - you don’t have to feel holy. Nor is it a conjuring up of all one’s finer instincts. Since prayer was taught first by Christ himself to simple fishermen it must surely follow that it is not, in essence, an affair of heavy sensibility or aesthetic accomplishment, like listening to great music. It is the emptying out of our own priorities: the true approach of the penitent to the lover of sinners. It is, above all, the gift of everyone, for the serene presence of the Saviour comes now to the most humble and broken lives as once he came to the poor and outcast of the Galilean lakeside. But without prayer you do not see him, and without penitence you do not know him.

-Dr. Edward Norman

MASSES TODAY

6.30: John & Margaret Berry, (Anniv)

9.00: Jim Tully, (Anniv)

11.00: James Arnold, (Anniv)

12.15: People of the Parish.

6.30: Free (Anniv)

Notices:

Cemetery Sunday Rahoon -September 16th, Mass at 3:00 pm

In line with parishes around the country we athe the Augustinian parish are setting up a group to organise and promote Mission awareness within and on behalf of our Parish. Please contact Mary Taylor or the Parish Office at 562524.