The Way

The parish where I hang my biretta has St. James the Apostle as its patron. St. James is also the patron of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Compostella, Spain, the terminus of the ancient yet still very popular pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James. As our parish leadership has worked over the past while to develop a Mission Action Plan for the parish, we have looked often to the image of pilgrimage as an icon and model of the Christian life.

It is this connection that recently led me to look for the 2010 movie The Way, starring Martin Sheen. Adapted for the screen and produced by Sheen's son Emilio Estevez, it is the story of a man who travels to France to identify and reclaim the body of his son who died in a storm on his first day on the Camino. He decides to complete the journey his son began.

I am increasingly intrigued by the idea of pilgrimage both as spiritual devotion and spiritual pilgrimage. The earliest Christians referred to our faith as The Way. Roads and journey's occur again and again in the salvation history. Deuteronomy calls on us to acknowledge a wandering Aramean as our ancestor. Joseph journeys to Egypt and, generations later, the Hebrews journey back to the land of promise. The story of Jesus begins with a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and much of the story of his ministry is set on the road from Galilee to Jerusalem, culminating in the Way of the Cross. 

Starting with the Camino may be a little presumptuous. Perhaps some smaller scale pilgrimages are a place to begin. But to be a Christian is to be a pilgrim. And like any journey, that pilgrimage begins with a step.