ON
PILGRIMAGE
On Sunday, November 23, 2004, I left for a two week
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I went, as I often explained
to people there, because Omar Tesdell, a recent graduate of
Iowa State University whom I had mentored, was spending a
year volunteering with the International Center of
Bethlehem. He told me that I should come and visit. And so
I obeyed him.
I spent much of the time in Palestine – though Omar
and I visited a few places in Israel. I also visited with a
professor of religion at an Israeli university and spoke on
Catholicism to two of his classes.
I went with few expectations. I did not go with the fervor
of a pilgrim who would have the chance to walk where Jesus
did. Nor did I go as an activist wanting to ferret out all
the injustice. But I did see my visit as one of a
pilgrimage of faith and solidarity.
It was a pilgrimage of faith because it was an opportunity
to visit the places where God became human, where the mercy
of God became incarnate in human flesh and blood in a
particular place. The particularity of God’s
incarnation in Jesus is central to my faith.
But it was also a pilgrimage of solidarity. I have made
other pilgrimages of solidarity. My frequent visits to El
Salvador – especially the visits to the sites of
martyrdom – are pilgrimages to be in direct contact
with the suffering poor of that country, many of whom have
touched my heart. And so I wanted this visit to the Holy
Land to include the chance to meet the people living there,
the living stones. Omar’s presence there gave me a
way to meet them and to come in contact again with the
“crucified people of the world.”
I didn’t expect that this pilgrimage would be
accompanied by major revelations. Even the threat of
violence didn’t unduly worry me. After all, I had
lived in El Salvador for a few months during the war.
But I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the
experience. I offer these vignettes as a way to share with
friends some of the grace of my pilgrimage and some of the
hunger and thirst for justice that it inspired.
These are my very limited reflections, my impressions, that
scarcely do justice to a tremendously complex situation
where the demands of peace, justice, and security are in
great tension, where Palestinians and Israelis suffer
violence, and where many — Jews, Christians and
Muslims — yearn for a peace that seems so far away.
Bethlehem
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