As Protestants, we are not sure about pilgrimages. I am one of the unsure. Growing up in Costa Rica, I saw tens of thousands of people taking a yearly pilgrimage from (at least) San Jose, where I lived, to a town called Cartago. I knew from history class that Cartago used to be the capital city of Costa Rica, and that the most famous church in Costa Rica was there, not because of the old capital city status, but because of a miracle that people claim happened there.

               The story goes that in 1635, yes, almost 300 years ago, a little girl of mixed race (and that part of the story is significant) found a little statue of the Virgin Mary holding her baby Jesus next to a spring in the woods. The girl took it home. The next morning, it was gone- it had found its way back to the spring. The girl took it back home again. The next morning, same thing, the statue was back at the spring. It happened three times. So, the adults decided a miracle had happened, built a little shrine, and people have been flocking to it ever since.

               If you go there, the site where the spring comes up is understood to be a source of holy water. If you go and see the statue, you see an enormous collection of little amulets of body parts. Bordering on the macabre, they are offerings commemorating healings from the holy water.

               I grew up taking people there, both as a kid with my parents, and later on as a guide. It was on the way to a volcano and made for a good stop along the way. My parents, and Protestants in general, panned the veracity of it all. The Rosario (as the pilgrimage is called) was viewed skeptically as a devotion to Mary (instead of Jesus) and the pursuit of superstition (that that water had magic powers.)

               And having said all that, today, after church, I am headed to the mother of all pilgrimages, the Camino de Santiago. (OK, it’s second to Jerusalem, but you don’t walk in Israel. You just go up and down the stairs of a bus.)  What’s up with that? What am I doing? I lend no credence that the bones of St. James can be found inside the cathedral there. And I don’t carry any expectation that arriving there for Mass will cure what ails me.

               For me, the walk is the pilgrimage. Maybe I’ve been influenced too much by John Bunyon. He wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. As he described the character Christian’s pilgrimage, that long walk was just life. Life is a long hike in which we aim for heaven. There are pitfalls all along the way. There are trials, temptations, and distractions. (The biggest concerns I carry in Spain are weather and my legs handling it.) Perseverance, as we see in the book of James, is a most valued lesson through all the trials of life. I covet your prayers.

I think we are all pilgrims. Not to Cartago, or Fatima, or Lourdes, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. No. To heaven. For some the walk is longer than it is for others. We miss those who have arrived before us. Some of us take more circuitous routes than others to get there. But all of us are on the Camino. Not to a little hamlet in Spain, but to a place where we delightfully meet our Maker.

So, grab your walking stick, put on your boots, and let’s go! The aid stations are many. You are in one this morning. The fellow pilgrims are many, too. The fact that the little statue of Mary appeared to a mixed-race girl in the jungle has meant, for Costa Ricans, that the miracles of God are for everybody, not just the elites (or the Spanish, specifically in those times.)  I like that. God’s grace is for every pilgrim.

Are you ready?

Craig

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work
so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4 (NIV)