A Heart in Pilgrimage

In his poem Prayer, George Herbert refers to prayer as the “heart in pilgrimage.” Lent is a particularly good time for a journey of the heart, when we leave behind the boundaries we have put in place to safeguard and control our lives and, as the Celtic people say, “seek the place of our resurrection.”

In the Celtic tradition, a pilgrimage was undertaken to “cast oneself upon the mystery of God,” as Phillip Sheldrake notes in his book Living Between Worlds: Place and Journey in Celtic Spirituality. It is a time for God who knows us better than we know ourselves to lead us to a place of new life. God’s choices might seem counterintuitive, as when the Spirit led Jesus into the desert for a period of reflection and temptation. However, even periods of trial and hardship serve us by strengthening us, providing clarity, and teaching us to rely on God rather than on ourselves.

St. Brendan’s prayer offers guidance during our Lenten pilgrimage of the heart:

Help me to journey beyond the familiar
and into the unknown.
Give me the faith to leave old ways
and break fresh ground with you.

Let us leave old ways of impatience, criticizing others, seeking comfort in possessions, and numbing or distracting ourselves instead of meeting the challenges of life. As we break fresh ground in our spring gardens, may we break fresh ground in our hearts by being open to God’s loving presence.

Sheldrake further observes that “The true object of pilgrimage had always been a loving attention to God; there was a deep suspicion of pilgrims who did not already carry with them the God whom they sought.” Just so, when we go on a pilgrimage of the heart during Lent, we will find on Easter Sunday that we have carried Christ, who is the place of our resurrection, with us all along.