Pilgrimage is a vitally important and adhered to practice at St. Simeon Skete.
In his book "The Road to Emmaus, Pilgrimage as a Way of Life", Jim Forest says "Roads are the circulatory system of the human race and the original information highway. From times long before the written word, roads have linked house to house, town to town, and city to city."
In his book "The Road to Emmaus, Pilgrimage as a Way of Life", Jim Forest says "Roads are the circulatory system of the human race and the original information highway. From times long before the written word, roads have linked house to house, town to town, and city to city."
The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out
of an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation
of the meanings and signs of the outer journey. One can
have one without the other. It is better to have both.
-Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters
On this Feast Day of the Most Holy Cross, we took to the road to make pilgrimage to a little area known as Germantown in Louisville, Kentucky. There we find another one of those "thin places"("thin places", a Celtic Christian term for "those rare locales where the distance between heaven and Earth collapses") that you happen upon that is somewhat forlorn and forgotten except for a few who realize the significance of the place.
We've been here before and as a child my grandfather and I would take walks to the Grotto. At that time, it was part of the enclosure of St. Joseph's Infirmary. Its now hidden off the side of a main highway and encircled by apartment complexes. At first glance, its hardly noticeable.
As you close in on it, its a bit difficult to figure out what it is...
However as you walk towards it, the enclosure reveals its purpose.
As we walked inside, immediately you feel drawn to prayer.
On this Feast of the Holy Cross, we felt called, especially in this place, to say the Stations of the Cross. We said the opening prayers at the Grotto
At the skete, we begin the stations with the Garden of Gethsemani, so we turned around to face the garden. (You can see the apartment dwellings all around the area).
One by one we followed the Way of the Cross, even singing (out loud) the Stabat Mater between each station.
The hand painted Stations are vividly incredible.
The rain began to fall as we journeyed through each Station of the Cross. But it was only a mist and it served to enhance the mystical atmosphere.
Its my belief that there are many places like these, scattered about hidden smack in the middle of life, subdivisions and Pallet Yards. We must search them out, stop what we are doing and take the time to go closer.
"...Moses's turning aside from his original path. He felt that the marvel of the Burning Bush warranted making a stop; he was moved with desire to contemplate it and ponder deeply on it. He accepted without question this sudden, extraordinary, divine event. And it was because he did not hesitate to change his direction towards the Burning Bush that God was able to call to him. 'And when the Lord saw that..(Moses) turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.'
All this applies just as much to us today as it did to Moses. If during the course of our lives we hurry along without stopping, without even a glance towards the Burning Bush (which nevertheless continues its blazing along the whole of our way, though most of the time our eyes are close to it), we shall miss the opportunity God desires. If, on the contrary, we do not hesitate to leave aside for a time the flocks of Jethro - our daily cares - the Lord will call to us from the midst of the bush. He will call to each on of us by a name that is our own.
Moses answered 'Here am I' without knowing what God would require of him. Such declaration of being at His disposal is what the Lord awaits from us also.
May we place ourselves before Him, before the Burning Bush, and say: 'Here I am at this moment. Here I am in this very place. Here am I for Thee, without any reservations whatever.' " -L. Gillet
