In Waugh’s masterpiece Brideshead Revisited, when the Catholic aristocratic Marchmain family is visited by Father Mackay, their parish priest, Ker explains that in performing the sacraments, Father Mackay “doesn’t use any special kind of religious voice; indeed, he does things rather than utters words; he is businesslike, matter-of-fact, and practical…. [And yet] the simple things he does—with his hands—are supernatural, for he is a divine craftsman: he knows his trade and does what he has to do in accordance with its rules, simply and without fuss.”
Coming back to school after the summer (and I can’t believe it’s over!) is always a time full of talking. Catching up over lunch or dinner–or breakfast, for morning people like me–fuels nearly interminable conversations. When I’ve been asked over the past week where I’d been for the summer, after a brief internal struggle I always find myself answering, “Oh, just travelling. Nothing much.” This is slightly disappointing–but it belies what, perhaps, has turned out to be one of the seminal reflections gleaned from my travel fellowship experience.
“A pilgrimage,” I billed it in my proposal, because Catholics love pilgrimages, right? But to be quite honest, I never used that word to describe it myself, not the entire time I was on it, nor in any of the conversations I’ve had since coming back. That is arguably–as a serendipitously-met-at-church retired missionary to China tried to convince–what it was.
Pilgrimages do indeed have a long patrimony in the history of Christianity. From the Desert Fathers who struck out into the wilderness to seek God amidst the barrenness and silence of the desert, to St Jerome’s encourages pilgrimages to the Holy Land, to the millions today walking the Camino de Santiago in the footsteps of St James, or the millions flocking to Lourdes or Fatima or Krakow in search of spiritual and physical healing, the idea that undertaking a physical journey might have spiritual significance is neither a new idea, nor a dead one.
A pilgrimage–peregrinatio in Latin, from which we derive the name of the peregrine falcon–is one of those circumstances where the journey really is more important than the destination, a point saliently demonstrated by the most famous literary account of a pilgrimage, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. In it, Dante, led by Virgil his guide, takes a journey through hell, and purgatory, and finally enters into paradise. His is a spiritual journey, “through the darkness of sin into the light of Jesus Christ,” as Bishop James D. Conley, bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, points out. This, Bishop Conley goes on to say, “is the essence of a Christian pilgrimage”–the search for the illumination of God.
In that light, mine was a pilgrimage, but I found it hard to admit, in conversation or even to myself. “Just riding trains and going places,” I would say, but the sense that I really was hoping to do something more–and unwilling to admit it–never deserted me. The sense, too, that I was never homesick–that bothered me too. Doesn’t one naturally yearn for home?
After landing in Chicago, I took a (long) train to New York. The one rule I had made for myself on this trip was to say yes to serendipity. This yielded rewards early on, when I stumbled upon a notice online that the Sisters of Life, a New York-founded religious order dedicated to prayer and service for pregnant or post-abortive women and their children, were celebrating their 25th anniversary with a mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by a block party near their convent in Hell’s Kitchen. What could be more American than a block party? So I signed up, and found myself on that Wednesday morning waiting on a New York street corner with a bunch of nuns.
…and having pizza under a rainbow of streamers…
…and melting inside…
…and admiring the sisters’ patience with standing under the sun in their habits.
The rest of New York passed in a blur of meeting friends, musicals, and gobbling up the Met (and deli sandwiches).
The Met proper.The garden in the Cloisters.The Cloisters, a window.Booksssssss.In the Met Cloisters.Flowers!A park near the Met Cloisters.So happy to be eating a good deli sandwich that I neglected to focus the camera!
Did I go see the Empire State Building? No. Did I go see Ellis Island? No. For all the tourist places I could’ve gone to, I don’t think I could say yes to having gone to many of them. But I did go to the Met twice! Therein, I think, lies one of the sweetest early discoveries of my summer, one that would come back to me again and again in the days to follow–I could do whatever I wanted with my time. I didn’t have to go be a tourist if I didn’t want to; I could stay in and write or go out to church. I didn’t have to go to class! This total freedom, for anyone who’s been in school for nearly seventeen years, was a novel thing. I remember going to church a lot, just because I could, and eating salami and cheese, just because I could. (There are my priorities for you, then–cold cuts and church.)
The following weeks took me through Boston (cold) and to St Louis, where I was attending the Sacred Music Colloquium of the Church Music Association of America, a five-day series of workshops and masses and choral practices designed to give parish musicians, from the amateur hobbyist to the professional cathedral music director, both a retreat and a learning experience in how to improve their music programmes. It’s hard to explain what we did without going into a great deal of unnecessary detail, but to summarise, we sang a lot and prayed a lot and did a lot of that at the same time. I remember thinking, on day three of five, just before falling asleep: this is as close as it gets for me to heaven on earth.
Plus, St Louis–the middle of the lower 48, pretty much–is full of beautiful things. How? I don’t know, but there’s a reason that in Walter J. Miller’s post-apocalyptic novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, St Louis is the ‘New Rome’.
The door of the St Louis Cathedral Basilica. The crest says ‘Through Jesus Christ’.The glorious dome, 150 feet up, covered in mosaics.The altar with its reredos. You can see how huge this place is.St Francis de Sales Oratory, another giant church. See car for comparison.Not a church, but the Budweiser brewery.St John Nepomuk, the first Czech Catholic church in the US. Easy to see why it’s popular for weddings.A window at St John Nepomuk.Someone’s lovely wall-painting.The famed arch.
Heh. Also visible–the fleur-de-lis motif that is so prevalent throughout St Louis and New Orleans.
At the Cathedral in St Louis, I met a retired missionary couple. In the spirit of saying yes to reasonable things, I found myself waiting for them at Union Station in Chicago, after getting off my train from St Louis. I spent the weekend with them at their daughter’s house, and it was here that the questions so long resting on the back burner arose again.
“Say, would you call this a pilgrimage?” asked Mr McGuire, as we were having lunch in an unassuming Chinese fast food place.
“Umm, I don’t think so. I’m not really going anywhere, you see–”
He had a twinkle in his eye. “Well, I think it is. You’re looking for God, right?”
“Well… kind of. Arguably, I’m just going places.”
He laughed. “Oh, it is, you’ll see. Write about your pilgrimage for the Benedictine newsletter I edit. The December issue.”
I let it slide, and noted also that I wasn’t homesick.
The McGuires dropped me off at the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Cross the next Tuesday, and cheerfully told Brother Guestmaster that I was on a pilgrimage.
“Pilgrimage,” I interjected, making exaggerated finger quotes. “Not really a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage.” Mr McGuire smiled and shrugged, with a “you’ll think about that pilgrimage, though,” and they left, leaving me in a Benedictine monastery with no clue what the rules were.
Benedictines have maintained ministries of hospitality since their very establishment; it’s in the Rule of St Benedict to welcome all guests “as Christ Himself”, even those not of the Christian faith. Despite being slightly afraid of Benedictines–and not knowing the first thing about monastery etiquette–I had emailed to ask for a room in the retreat house, and was surprised to be accepted.
“Here’s the Wi-Fi password. See you at Sext!” Brother Guestmaster said, before popping back out of the door. Sext–so named because it is supposed to be prayed at noon, the sixth hour of the day in the Roman way of reckoning time–was at 12.45pm and would be followed by dinner. Wi-Fi? I had tentatively steeled myself for a completely austere retreat–and for the inevitable hair-pulling, lip-gnawing attack of acedia and digital detox–but if I had Wi-Fi… I settled into reading, but resolved in a fit of stubbornness (which I am not unknown for) that if I was going to have access to the Internet, I would have to go to every office of prayer, for this to be a legitimate retreat and not just terribly cheap accommodation.
So I did. Okay, that’s fudging the truth–I skipped Matins, which was prayed at 3.30am there, and missed Lauds when I slept in one day. But apart from that, dutifully I set my alarms, trotting out of the guesthouse five minutes before every office and into the oratory, where the monks were themselves slowly trickling in from their various tasks. Benedictines live by the motto “ora et labora”–pray and work, which is to say that praying is work, and working is prayer. Hence, they live a life where manual labour and prayer are interwoven.
Each office of the daily prayers really began several seconds before, in the silence of anticipation. I sat in the pews, while the monks sat up in front in the choral stalls that faced inward, aligned perpendicular to the pews. An invisible still would fall over the oratory, until one of them would stand and ring the bell with a practised hand. Then we all stood and began, singing first the versicle that opens every hour of the office, “O God, come to my assistance. / O Lord, make haste to help me.”
Then followed the various parts of the office. It was smooth and practiced and tranquil, as one might expect from those who do this as their life’s work.’Beautiful’ isn’t quite the word to describe it, although it comes close; nor is a ‘house of prayer’ quite the right idea for the oratory. All I can say–and pity that they didn’t send a better writer on this trip–is that there was an intensity in the air, both determined and laidback, urgent yet unhurried, and a beauty more dynamic and pure than that word normally connotes. When I think beauty, I inevitably think a snapshot of a beautiful girl. This sort of beauty had no prettiness about it, unlike a girl or any, really, earthly manifestation of beauty, but only the purest sense of the good and the beautiful. I try, but you see…
Right then, sitting in those pews, I was unhappy and uncertain, especially the first two days. I wasn’t quite anywhere–I had de facto imprisoned myself here, by my determination to ‘really make a retreat’ and by the schedule of meals and my inherent miserliness–and I was supposed to have observations to make and a travel fellowship to write, and wasn’t I obligated to do tourist things? Well, I thought, I do actually want to be here for the experience. So I’ll serve out my sentence–after all the food is wonderful and the quiet is amazing–and ‘real work’ can start again after this.
My room.Rest. Heh.
I went on walks. Chicago parks are beautiful.It’s rather moving to think about how the monks are the gardeners.
So the countdown slowly went down to zero, even as I grew slightly more confident and less shy about turning up for the little hours, and soon I found myself, without warning, in an Airbnb rental an hour’s walk away–crying. But it wasn’t the monastery, I knew it. Deep down I knew that I couldn’t live there, so it couldn’t be that I was homesick for that specific place, not even with its four adorable cats and ramen slaw. But why did I even have that idea, ‘homesick’?
The guesthouse, Ascension House.
The monastery in Chicago marked the turning point of my itinerary, and of my thinking about this place called ‘home’. Simply by coincidence, the first part of my trip had been mostly self-initiated things, with the bulk of ‘church’ things being in the latter half of my eight weeks abroad. I spent a week walking around Chicago and bookending my days with morning mass and Night Prayer at the loveliest Chicago parish, where I made fast friends with the young adults and the chaplain, whose preternatural wisdom was juxtaposed with his alarmingly boyish grin.
Here one of my questions got partly answered. I found myself–somewhat confused how I’d decided to come–at Night Prayer. As I left, Father said hello, and in my embarrassment I said, making excuses, “I just happened to be in the neighbourhood, and I thought, why not come–”
He looked at me and smiled. “After all, what’s a better place to be, right?”
There on the steps of the church, a place where many a realisation has happened throughout human history, I began to realise he was right. Why apologise for being there–save for apologising for looking too desperate? God–as I do believe He exists and so on–is in His nature all goodness, and why apologise for wanting that? The answer, as it often is with people, is pride, or the fear to look like we need any help. For me, it was the fear to look like I cared any amount about the outcome of this trip, like I needed it at all. If I was just “going places” there could be no disappointment, but if I looked like I was trying to find something (or Something, as it were)–as they say, aim for the Moon, and if you fall you make a really big splat.
On the train to New Orleans.
So I went off to New Orleans, resolving to be bold in humility. I was off to the Cenaculum of the Friends of St Jerome, a small organisation that makes Latin-learning course materials based on the Vulgate Bible, and holds a yearly Latin immersion retreat. There I spent about four hours a day in the chapel (in Latin), five in lectures, and two at the Latin-free, kids-only games table–and one hour playing volleyball, keeping score in Latin.
It’s funny, but by the second day, it felt as if we had all known each other all our lives, and when we said goodbye, it felt as if we would see each other in just another moment. Just as meeting them had felt like resuming a friendship as old as memory itself, so did leaving them feel like temporarily setting aside something that would last forever. So we packed up the volleyball net and exchanged genuine hugs, and set off on our ways.
“Come back next year!” I hope so, I said. I sure hope so.
On the 19-hour train ride back to Chicago, I wondered about that eternity in which my Cenaculum friendships seemed to have come from. In a way, they made me feel at home, in a way that I never really did at school or growing up. A memory resurfaced. During one of my first meals in the refectory, one of the kittens had darted in and secreted itself among the folds of Brother Joseph’s robe where it brushed the floor. I didn’t know his name then, and with all the meals taken in silence, he seemed like a terrifyingly long-faced spectre sitting way across the room. But when he felt the kitten around his ankles, he looked down, and recognising it, broke into a wide grin. Truly Cat-holic, I thought to myself–it’s one of the lamest jokes ever, but hey. And then the realisation struck me. He’s Catholic, and so am I. Even though we’re from different countries and I will never have a conversation with him, our lives are in this strange way intertwined, and forever will be. So too the lives of my Cenaculum friends.
Not the kitten, but one of their cats.
On that train ride I realised, with a laugh, that I had simply this summer had a real experience of a truth I’d known all along.
There’s a line in one of the Church’s prayers–and by no means is it a new sentiment–that refers to “God’s pilgrim church on Earth”. The idea, as it has always been articulated in the Church’s theology and tradition, is that we are all aliens in this world, pilgrims in the barque of Peter, sailing on to our eternal home. It’s a long ride–and a hard one–but we are going somewhere, and never will we find home until we reach that heavenly one that awaits us. In the Church on earth we find a window onto that eternal home and that eternal community; here physically we find our fellow pilgrims, and united by our common pilgrimage, we can draw on some of that heavenly home and live there in a small way.
I’d known this, having always loved that line, but it was right then, thinking about a kitten and a monk and nights full of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups that I realised how much I had already experienced home in my life in those eight weeks, and why I had been homesick but not for the home I’d feared missing.
A lady said to me, the first day we met at the Sacred Music Colloquium, “I feel like I’ve found my people,” the ones who understand when you gush about William Byrd and weep over Gregorian chant. I know now that she was right. The ones who nod when you say, after a long pause for the right word, that organum harmony sounds like wheatgrass, and Mozart is like candy. I’d told and heard innumerable jokes about how Catholics never sit in the first row, which is a surprisingly universal trait. The ones who laugh when you say, “Let’s sing Credo III.”
I’d lived the life of the common prayer of the Church in mass and in the monastery’s divine office. I’d stolen pitches from fellow musicians who, for all their training and talent, were Catholics first. I’d found the warmth of truth and love in the Church’s music and her native language, in priests who carried the light of Christ, and in the regulation of the life the monks lived, which made a powerful statement for the existence of a reward beyond any temporal one. I’d spent hours in chapel, in the presence of the Lord whom St Thomas Aquinas wrote would give us eternal help in our homeland of heaven. I’d laughed, so much, and I had been so happy. I had fallen into the arms of the Church. Home had found me, and every physical mile I had travelled really had brought me into the homeland that goes beyond geography.
And there’s still a ways to go. Life is a journey of constant conversion and constant pilgrimage, after all. As Jacques le Goff, medievalist, writes in his book on Jacobus de Voragine, O.P.’s The Golden Legend, of “the time of pilgrimage”,
After the time of reconciliation, which stretches from the Resurrection to Ascension and Pentecost, when Christ, by his incarnation, his passion, and his resurrection, permitted time to reconcile humanity with God, comes the time of pilgrimage. Humanity, marching always in step with a time that has now become eschatological, leading to the end of time and the hope of salvation, is like a pilgrim on his way, for the end of time in eternity has not yet come.
(Jacques le Goff, In Search of Sacred Time: Jacobus de Voragine and The Golden Legend, 121)
One day, may we find ourselves in that blessed home. I’m glad I got to have a glimpse of it.
P.S. magna gratia habenda est–bountiful thanks are due to many for this experience. First and most practically, to the Centre for Professional and International Experience at Yale-NUS College, for the award that allowed me to go gallivanting this summer, and whose support and encouragement has always been a great boon. Then to my parents and my sister, whose generosity and love I am much indebted to. To my dearest friends, for loving me. To everyone I met–the Sisters of Life, the CMAA, Familia Sancti Hieronymi, the Monastery of the Holy Cross, the young adults at St John Cantius and more–thank you for welcoming me. To all the priests especially, thank you. And thanks to the saints for their help (Saint Anthony, as I lost things with alarming frequency) and above all to God Himself.
the lexical form 