A pilgrimage, by definition, is a journey to a sacred place or one made out of devotion. We don’t all have weeks on end to hike the Santiago, devote a week at Medjugorie, or meditate in some distant place to find inner peace. But I have found that on most of my vacations I can slip away for morning mass or wander down some side street to find a spiritual moment that awakens the divine in me. And might just make me a little easier to travel with.
A few years ago I found myself on a river cruise down the Danube and Rhine; I say found because I never really seem to plan these things they just sort of happen. Hopefully that means God is conspiring to set me off on a life of travel!
Europe provides ample opportunities to visit churches. Her landscape is dotted with the steeples and arches of cathedrals and monasteries. The grand views of Melk, the secularized Mont Saint Michael or the cold interior of Norte Dame all give Europe a flavor of what once was, but the art of the pilgrimage is to find a place where the spirit breaths deep into her people. Moving them along her journey.
Melk Abby
On a river cruise where food, drink and the tour du jour can move you along without you ever noticing where you are or where you’ve been, it’s easy to just finish the day back on the boat or in a bar. But there is always a nugget there waiting for you. On this cruise, my sacred moment came in Passau, Germany. Passau sits at the crossroads where the Danube is joined by the Inn and Liz Rivers, guiding voyagers by her dual shores. During our morning guided tour a traveler asked about a long narrow structure that stretches up the hillside across the river on the Inn side of Passau. The guide said it covers a staircase that leads to an Italianate church atop the hill. A former pilgrimage site. Oh, this is my moment!
Passau’s famous brewery on the left. The barely mentioned 400 year old stairs to Mariahilf on the right.
After the tour I crossed the bridge looking for the entrance to the staircase. Unfortunately I took a wrong turn and ended up instead at a church, the Mariahilf. There was a wedding in the church but a few people mingled outside.
I searched and asked; no one spoke English. Finally a woman approached me and pointed to a door, made a gesture with her fingers suggesting stairs.
Inside this “former” pilgrimage site, the walls are covered with artwork, crosses and prayers left by pilgrims past and present. A history of hopes, dreams and pleas scribed where time has stood still. A young couple ascends the stairs on their knees, an old woman pauses on each step, one more bead on her rosary disappearing into her palm. And I, always the dyslexic, am the only pilgrim DESCENDING this heavenly ladder of 321 stairs. I hope that isn’t a look into my future!
Wherever the summer’s journeys lead you, don’t forget to pause and look for that sacred moment where the spirit is waiting to awaken you. It was not in a church or a long set of stairs that the spirit awaited me. It was instead in that young couple, that old woman and each devotion left by pilgrims past.
