A Pilgrimage to Santiago

I am writing this blog on the train, heading homewards from Cardiff. I’ve spent this week with clergy from the Diocese of Llandaff. Not in Wales, but in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Bishop June Osborne had invited me to travel with her group of over one hundred people who were making this pilgrimage as their clergy school. It was part of the Diocese’s preparation for the Year of Pilgrimage that begins next year, when the Church in Wales marks the centenary of its disestablishment.

My brief was to offer a daily Bible reading on the theme of pilgrimage. You can read my four addresses at http://northernambo.blogspot.com. I decided to draw on St Luke’s Gospel to help us make connections between pilgrimage down the centuries and our lives today. The first address was on “Pilgrimage and the Offering of Life” where we looked at the child Jesus in the temple. The second, “Pilgrimage and Truth-Seeking” was based on the story of the temptations in the wilderness. The third, “Pilgrimage and Pain” drew on the journey Luke describes Jesus as making as he “turned his face towards Jerusalem”. And the final address on the Emmaus Road resurrection story explored Jesus as our contemporary who, known or unrecognised, walks with us on pilgrimage.

The great thing about the week was the freedom the Bishop gave us to engage with Santiago in our own way. What mattered, she said, was to be together. There was daily worship of course - bilingual Welsh/English, echoing the bilingual culture of our Galician hosts where they speak both Spanish and Gallego: I loved that. There were shared meals enjoyed together (including, on the last evening, a conference dinner in the legendary Parador opposite the Cathedral). There were sessions with visiting speakers on pilgrimage in Wales, pilgrimage with children and resources for promoting pilgrimage in local churches. And many memorable conversations. And lots of laughter. But much of each day was deliberately kept free: to walk (if you wanted to), explore the city (if you wanted to), read (if you wanted to) or simply benefit from a gentler pace of life away from the pressures of “ordinary time”.

It was not my first visit to the great pilgrimage city of Santiago. Jenny and I had been there in 2006 when we drove slowly and reflectively along the entire length of the Camino from one of its traditional starting points in France, Vézelay. And back again, along a different route. We’d stopped at the churches and shrines, said our prayers and lit candles. We’d met other pilgrims on the Camino and listened to their stories. We’d enjoyed each other’s companionship - such a rich word, that, literally “bread-sharing” - and felt a sense of contentment for so much that was lovely in our lives. It was a beautiful experience. 

I shared some of this with the Llandaff clergy. I wanted to emphasise that pilgrimage is not about the means of transport we use to make the journey, but the spirit in which we do it. With the biblical texts to inform us, we looked at different ways of understanding pilgrimage. A journey with a purpose was one. A journey that led to transformation and change was another. A journey that moved us from being observers to becoming participants was a third. The important point is that we bring the whole of ourselves with us. And although we can never know how until we do it, it’s going to make a difference to our lives. To fly by jet from Cardiff to Compostela may not offer the romance and hard work of walking. But that doesn’t make it any less of a pilgrimage. What matters is why we’re making the journey in the first place.

I was keen to deepen my understanding of Santiago as a pilgrim destination. So I spent a lot of time walking round this beautiful granite city (and photographing it - for me, an indispensable way of paying attention to its sense of place). The historic centre is one of those rare places where every building seems right, from the great churches, palaces and monasteries that cluster round the Cathedral, to the more intimate charms of the pedestrianised arcaded streets and squares and alleys within the line of the ancient city walls. 

The museums were especially good. Outstanding was the Museum of Pilgrimage close to the Cathedral. The interior of this classical building has been brilliantly reimagined as a sequence of contemporary spaces in which artefacts relating to pilgrimage are beautifully displayed. I learned a lot about the history of the Santiago pilgrimage, not least its political role in the Reconquista, the seven centuries it took to re-Christianise Spain and drive out Islam. In the galleries I saw many depictions in art and sculpture of St James Matamoros, the “Moor-Slayer” brandishing his sword for Christendom and trampling down the Muslims. It was sobering - painful actually - to see these representations of the Son of Thunder (which you find all along the Camino) in the light of the history of relations between Christianity and Islam and the tensions we are acutely aware of in today’s world.

I’d recommend any pilgrim in Santiago to visit this museum. Not only does it shed light on the Camino and how the Cathedral at Santiago developed into the world-famous shrine it has become. It also explores pilgrimage as a spiritual concept, why people of all world faiths undertake it, what aspirations and ideals it represents. And as you move from floor to floor, the museum’s striking architecture opens up to offer glimpses of the Cathedral towering above you across the square, and to remind you where you are, and why. 

The Cathedral itself is the high point of any visit to Santiago. It is undoubtedly one of the most important Romanesque churches in Europe. This year, essential conservation work means that it is heavily scaffolded and access is severely limited. In particular, we couldn’t climb the steps at the west end and go in by the celebrated Portico of Glory, one of the most marvellous creations of the twelfth century anywhere in the world. (An exhibition on the Portico in the Bishop’s Palace next door does go some way towards helping the visitor at least imagine what it looks like.) But we could still visit the crypt shrine to honour the reliquary of St James, and we could also go up the steps behind the high altar to hug his statue, a traditional act of greeting by pilgrims as they arrive in the Cathedral at the climax of their long journey. 

It’s too early to frame reflections on this unforgettable week. There has been a lot to think about. But I do want to pay tribute to the clergy of Llandaff Diocese for the way they engaged with the pilgrimage. It was clear from my conversations and from social media posts how much colleagues were getting out of the experience. Being there together with their Bishop was a big part of this, the sense that this shared journey to Santiago symbolised the hope-filled journey the Diocese itself was making as it approached the centenary. It was heartening to see the Bishop and her clergy so much at ease with one another. There can’t be many bishops who get a standing ovation from their clergy!

Speaking personally, I’ve not often spoken to a group of clergy who were more attentive, more responsive to what I was trying to share with them or more appreciative. A surprising number of people chose to take up themes from the talks over walks and drinks and meals, or simply wanted to tell me that something I’d said had touched them, or resonated in their own experience. On the final evening one priest, intrigued by my presentations, asked me about my aims as I’d set about preparing my addressses, the chief influences on my thinking, the theologians and spiritual writers I most admired, the part literature and the arts had played in my formation. I wasn’t expecting to be asked those thing, but I love the kind of candid conversation that fellow-travellers get into on pilgrimage. So I asked him the same questions in return! It made me aware of how privileged - and humbling - it is to be entrusted with a part to play in the spiritual development of colleagues in ministry. 

As always happens, I found myself deeply enriched by what fellow-pilgrims were giving back to me. Perhaps they weren’t aware that they were doing this, but I want to thank them all the same for such a generous “time of gifts”. And for the warmth of their hospitality, and for the best possible companionship on this pilgrim-adventure we shared together. 

And now that we’ve reached the time of homecoming, we know that our pilgrimage continues as the risen Lord walks alongside us in our ordinary days. He will keep alive in us the same joy and hope and companionship that we experienced in Santiago. Inspired by our memories of this week we travel on, thankful for all that these days together have meant for us. Ultreia! 

Quirinius Lives: the Home Office Says “Register!”

Someone in high places wasn't paying attention when their Home Office video was launched on the Third Day of Christmas. It was early in the morning of the 27 December, the first tweet out of the Home Office after wishing everyone a happy Christmas. If you haven't heard, this is the video that tells citizens from the 27 overseas EU countries who want to go on living in the UK after Brexit how to set about applying. "EU citizens and their families will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living in the UK after 31 December 2020" it says. It takes 55 seconds to watch.

It's deeply ironic that this video should have been released during the twelve days of Christmas. Only a few days earlier, more than half the nation must have heard St Luke's account of the birth of Jesus read at thousands of nativity plays, crib blessings, Christingles and carol services. In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. In the ancient world you had to fit in with the requirements of a process-driven bureaucracy. Plus ca change. So Joseph and Mary have to make the arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, she nine months pregnant. They get there only to find there is no room at the inn. You know how the story continues.

So around 3.2 million people will need to register before 2021. That's a lot more form-filling than even dreary Quirinius could have dreamed of. Who doesn't love a good registration? What better excuse for a public holiday? Better still if you can anticipate government coffers swelling with unbudgeted income from it, for many of our EU27 friends will have to pay for the privilege of registering. I don't know if this was entirely clear to them before.

Predictably the video has been greeted with responses ranging from eye-rolling boredom (what did you expect from the Home Office?) through mockery and sarcasm to outright fury. Most striking has been the outrage of many people from EU27 countries who have lived in Britain for decades and thought this was their home. The Guardian quotes one: "You absolute s***! I've lived here 35 years, got a stamp in my passport for indefinite leave to remain in 1985 and now you want me to apply to stay in my own home." This from a Danish citizen who lives in the UK. And this which came up on my own Twitter feed: "Wow. This is making me feel so welcome, after 28 years of life here, making friends, paying taxes, bringing up two wonderful British citizens. Thank you so much for this slap in the face, UK Home Office. Absolutely sickening".

But I've also been struck by the responses of British citizens. "Seeing the impact of this policy on people I know and work with is a wake up call. I feel angry and ashamed" writes one. "I too am ashamed. I feel that I don’t belong here. We are not a civilised nation and the government does not represent anything I believe in" writes another. And this: "Making those who share a citizenship with us register as if they were aliens is quite shocking. Now we describe a few hundred refugees arriving at Dover as a national crisis and debate whether or not we should be rescuing them".

That last remark gets to the heart of the matter. The point about registration, which will not have been lost on Mary and Joseph, is that you are made to feel that your homeland isn't your own any more. It's been taken over by others, occupied by people who think they can control you by insisting that you comply with their requirements. My Jewish mother and her family knew all about this in Germany in the 1930s under the Nazis, and the creeping subjugation of the Jewish community by what might have seemed at first to be harmless bureaucratic processes of "registration". In Roman-occupied Judea, registration was a device to keep a potentially restless population in its place. (Never mind that there's some historical difficulty about Luke's account of this event - what we do know about Quirinius is that he was appointed as Imperial legate early in the first century precisely to oversee an exercise of this kind, even though the dates don't fit Luke's chronology. The nativity story still makes a powerful point about the two kinds of authority that are always at work in the world and confronting each other - human and divine, or we might say, the politics of God and the politics of human beings. Or maybe justification by faith or registration.)

I tweeted about this yesterday: "Like the registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. It reminded the Holy Family that they lived in an occupied land. Precisely how Brexit Britain now is for all true Europeans, whether from the UK or an EU27country". That didn't please one of my followers who wanted to know in what sense the UK today is like first century Roman-occupied Judea. Who is doing the occupying he asked? "Our worst selves" I replied. We are doing this to ourselves and one another. Somewhere, out of the shadow side of our nation has come this self-destructive instinct to "take back control" in ways that distance us, even cut us off from the neighbour we are commanded to love. For reasons I don't pretend to understand, we have come to a time in our history when demons of suspicion, resentment and hostility are being unleashed in our “othering” of those who only wish us well. In terms of our collective national psyche, a spirit is abroad that threatens a healthy sense of our identity, who we are and who we aspire to be as good human beings. This is the occupying power. And it seems to have us in its thrall.

This may seem strong language. Perhaps I'm more coloured than I should be by my family's experience of the 1930s. But how could I not be? But for Britain's welcome to Jewish refugees at that time, my mother would not have survived the Holocaust and I wouldn't be here now. I can feel viscerally the effect of becoming like an exile in my own country, ill at ease, sorry, ashamed. This is not the kind, just, generous, fair-minded nation I thought I lived in. At least, not in this respect. I think many of the Windrush generation will say the same. It's not easy to sing the Lord's song in this strange land.

It's still Christmas. We are still celebrating the wonderful events that followed Quirinius' (or whoever's) registration. Incarnation, God's coming among us as a vulnerable holy human Child is wisdom's answer to the follies of mortals. The Infant of Bethlehem brings hope to our world and promises to deliver us from this occupation we are experiencing by our worst selves. I was heartened by a positive reply to my despondent Quirinius tweet. "I too sometimes feel that it isn’t my country any longer. Then I speak to one or more of the many wonderful people I know, and I am reminded that recovery is both possible and necessary."

We look into one another's faces and glimpse reflected there what we see when we look into the face of God’s Incarnate Son. What we see is nothing less than grace and truth. So my prayer is that we shall all be guided by divine grace and truth into better days in the new year that is dawning. And that grace and truth may free us from all that demeans human life by teaching us to look on our neighbours not as strangers but as friends whom we love with something like the love with which God loves each of us.