We are offering the 2014 Lenten Retreat "On a Pilgrimage" on Facebook and on our parish blog found at www.josephraphael.blogspot.com
The retreat was based on the Stations of the Cross but includes a 15th station for the resurrection & an opening reflection. There will be 16 retreat posts, including this one.
To participate in the retreat, read the meditations & questions provided. Then follow the link to the attached article. Participate at your own pace. Read one meditation a day or set aside a block of time to go through all the stations at once. Your feedback is welcome!
Here is the Opening Reflection:
In the Middle Ages, it was popular to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or at least to make the vow of a pilgrimage and an attempt at making the pilgrimage. Traveling conditions were terrible. Most pilgrims would use the only type of transportation they could afford – walking, which was a hazardous journey on roads that were barel...y footpaths and filled with bandits. Over land, it is over 2800 miles from Paris to Jerusalem. The route is shorter by sea but also much more expensive, and a long sea voyage brought its own perils, often in the form of disease. It is no wonder that few pilgrims ever made the complete round-trip to the Holy Land.
Often the pilgrimage ended at the nearest cathedral or even in the next village. The length of the journey really didn’t matter because the object of the pilgrimage was to grow closer to God along the way. That is the object of our own pilgrim journeys as well.
Imagine a wagon wheel. It represents the journey that is each of our lives. Each of us is a spoke on this wheel. We begin our journeys along the edge, and throughout our lives, we journey towards God, who is in the center. Sometimes we move forward, and sometimes we move back, but none of us ever leaves the wheel. Even those of us who don’t recognize that we are on a spiritual journey are still traveling up and down our spokes.
As the spokes converge at the center, you will notice that the distance between the spokes narrows. We cannot grow closer to God without growing closer to each other, and often it is by growing closer to each other that we find ourselves growing closer to God.
We are companions on the pilgrimage that is life’s journey. We share in each other’s joys and sorrows. We see the face of Christ in our sisters and brothers. We see the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ rewritten in the world around us.
For those lucky medieval pilgrims who did make it all the way to Jerusalem, the culmination of their journey was to walk the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Suffering, retracing the steps of our Lord as he journeyed to Calvary. This path is still taken today by pilgrims who travel to Jerusalem and walk the narrow streets that wind through the city, out the gates, and up the hill to Golgatha. By praying the Stations of the Cross, those of us who cannot make a physical journey to Jerusalem can still participate in this devotion.
This retreat is shaped around the Stations of the Cross, only there are 15 stations because we have added a station for the resurrection. Each post is a station. There are meditations based on the Stations of the Cross. There all also links to articles depicting modern people who are walking in the footsteps of Christ down their own paths of suffering, and there are reflection questions.
Today you are invited to make your own pilgrimage. Your traveling companions are the others who read these posts. You are welcome to enter into a discussion together by posting comments below.
Your journey may begin at any station. Read the meditation and the linked article. Take time in silent reflection on the questions provided or questions of your own.
You choose how much time you spend on each station, the order in which you visit the stations, and how many stations you visit in a sitting. Just like the medieval pilgrims, the distance you travel is not important. What is important is that you grow closer to God along the way.
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