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Archbishop Burke: On Pilgrimage to Israel
The following is the text of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke' s weekly St. Louis Review column for March 7, 2008.
Introduction
I write to you about the recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land for which I was the spiritual director. The pilgrimage began on this past February 17th, with a late evening flight from New York City to Tel Aviv in Israel. It concluded on this past February 27th with an early morning (1 a.m., to be precise) flight from Tel Aviv back to New York City.
The pilgrims were all priests, apart from two laymen from the Catholic tour company which made all of the arrangements for the pilgrimage; the guide, a devout Palestinian Catholic who lives in Jerusalem; and the bus driver, a Palestinian Moslem who was noteworthy both for his deep respect for the priests and myself, and for his expert driving. Ten of the priests (including myself) were from the archdiocese, the other 14 priests came from various dioceses in our nation, namely, Dubuque, Iowa; Evansville, Indiana; Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri; La Crosse, Wisconsin; Raleigh, North Carolina; St. Paul-Minneapolis in Minnesota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Springfield, Illinois; and Washington, D.C. The youngest priest was ordained in 2004, and the oldest priest was ordained in 1952.
Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage is among the most ancient spiritual practices, going back to the Old Testament. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself went on pilgrimage with His mother, Mary, and His guardian, Saint Joseph. Every time we pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, we recall how He was left behind in Jerusalem at the conclusion of a pilgrimage from his hometown of Nazareth, and how Mary and Joseph found Him teaching the doctors of the law in the Temple.
Pilgrimage, in fact, is a deeply spiritual expression of the meaning of life itself which is a journey from the moment of conception to the moment of death. On pilgrimage, we remember that here, that is, on earth, we have no lasting city and that our days on earth, be they many or few, are a journey to the lasting home which our Lord has prepared for us in Heaven (John 14:1-7; and Hebrews 13:14).
When we go on pilgrimage, we leave the familiar surroundings of our everyday life to journey to a holy place. What do we mean by a holy place? We mean a place in which our Lord or his Blessed Mother or one of the saints has lived or appeared; or a place which has been set aside to the honor of our Lord, His Blessed Mother or one of the saints. At the holy place, a shrine or sanctuary is established, to which the faithful journey on pilgrimage, for example, the Shrine of Saint Joseph in Saint Louis.
If you wish to study in greater depth the spiritual practice of pilgrimage to shrines, I recommend two documents published by the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People in preparation for the observance of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000: The Pilgrimage in the Great Jubilee (April 25, 1998); and The Shrine: Memory, Presence and Prophecy of the Living God (May 8, 1999). They are available through the Daughters of Saint Paul (Pauline Books & Media), and also online at www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/migrants.
Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
Clearly, the holiest of places to which to go on pilgrimage are the places in which our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived, born, lived His hidden life, carried out His public ministry, suffered and died for us, rose from the dead, appeared to the disciples in His risen body, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. The pilgrimage to the holy places of our Lord Jesus Christ culminates in Jerusalem in which are located the Upper Room of the Last Supper and of Pentecost, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Way of the Cross, Mount Calvary or Golgotha, and the Holy Sepulchre.
Every other pilgrimage, in a certain way, is directed toward the Holy Land and, above all, to Jerusalem, the place in which our Lord Jesus accomplished the work of our salvation. The Holy Scriptures call the "city of the living God," which is our lasting home, by the name, "the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22). Saint John the Apostle, in his vision of our final destiny and the final destiny of all creation, when our Lord returns in glory on the Last Day, describes "a new heaven and a new earth," in which is found "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:1-2).
From Galilee to Jerusalem
Our pilgrimage to the Holy Land began in Galilee, at the places of the Annunciation, and the hidden life and public ministry of our Lord Jesus. It included Nazareth, Cana, Capernaum, Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea Philippi, Mount Tabor or the Mount of the Transfiguration, Tiberias, Tabgha (where our Lord appeared to Saint Peter and other Apostles after the Resurrection, and confirmed the Primacy of Peter), the Jordan River, and the Sea of Galilee or Gennesaret.
We journeyed from Galilee to Jerusalem, making a stop at Jericho to view the Judean wilderness in which our Lord Jesus passed the forty days of fasting and prayer in preparation for His public ministry. Especially striking is the Mount of the Temptation, the place in which Satan tempted our Lord three times during those forty days (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; and Luke 4:1-13).
At the beginning of our days in Jerusalem, we traveled twice to Bethlehem, the place of our Lord's birth. We also visited Shepherd's Field (the area, very near to Bethlehem, in which the shepherds were tending their flocks on the night of our Lord's birth and from which they were called by angels to adore Him), Bethany, and Ain Karim (the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of Saint John the Baptist, and the place of the Visitation).
In Jerusalem, we offered Holy Mass in the sanctuary which marks the place in which our Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37; and Luke 13:34), we prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and we made the Way of the Cross on the very path that our Lord Himself carried the cross from the Praetorium to Calvary. The culmination of the pilgrimage was the offering of the Holy Mass in the Holy Sepulchre and, essentially connected with it, the Holy Mass celebrated in the Cenacle or Upper Room, in which our Lord Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist.
Challenge and Goal of Pilgrimage
Certain hardships are inherent to going on pilgrimage. In other words, a pilgrimage is not a tour or a vacation but a spiritual time to be renewed in faith, hope, and charity. Often times, reaching the location of the shrine or sanctuary requires a special effort. Since most pilgrimages are made in company with other pilgrims, there is also the challenge to practice Christlike charity with our fellow pilgrims. We do not go on pilgrimage as angels but as frail human beings with all of our faults and failings which can try the patience of our fellow pilgrims.
The goal of the pilgrimage is to discover the extraordinary nature of our ordinary life because it is lived in Christ and is, indeed, a royal path leading to eternal life. The devout pilgrim discovers what the Servant of God Pope John Paul II so aptly described as the 'high standard of ordinary Christian living (Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte, "At the Close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000," January 6, 2001, n. 31). Through the pilgrimage, the pilgrim recognizes anew Christ alive within himself through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and how the indwelling of the Holy Spirit transforms his ordinary life into something truly extraordinary which anticipates the glory of eternal life with God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in the company of all the angels and saints.
Through daily Mass and the confession of sins in the sacrament of Penance, pilgrims receive the special graces for their pilgrimage. Each day, at the Holy Mass, the pilgrim is reminded of the reason for his pilgrimage and receives the Body of Christ to sustain him on the pilgrimage. Through the sacrament of Penance, the pilgrim seeks the forgiveness of his sins, of which he becomes conscious and for which he experiences deepest sorrow, as a particular grace of the pilgrimage.
Pilgrimage of Priests
Why organize a pilgrimage for priests? First of all, because priests, no less than any other member of the faithful, need the spiritual renewal and enrichment which a pilgrimage provides. At the same time, a pilgrimage of priests prepares the priests to be spiritual directors of pilgrimages for other members of the faithful.
A pilgrimage to the Holy Land has a special significance for priests for they contact the very places in which their priestly life and ministry have their origin: the places in which our Lord called the Apostles, in whose ministry the priest is called to share; the places in which our Lord taught and formed the Apostles, so that they would be prepared for consecration to act in His person as head and shepherd of the flock; and, finally, the Upper Room in which our Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist and the holy priesthood, so that the Holy Eucharist might be made present in every time and place.
One of the most edifying aspects of the pilgrimage was the manner in which the unity and fraternity of all priests was immediately evident. Many of the priests had never met each other before and, even if they were from the same diocese, may not have known each other that well. Through the pilgrimage, our Lord Jesus, as He did for the Apostles, drew the priests together as sharers in His one priesthood.
Conclusion
In speaking with others about the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Jerusalem, the most frequent question regards the safety of the pilgrimage. We are all sadly aware of the enduring conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. On pilgrimage, one sees the tragic signs of the conflict, for instance, the so-called "security wall," which attempts to isolate Palestinians from Israelis, increasing the enmity between them instead of drawing them together as brothers of the same land.
During our visit to Bethlehem, which has suffered in a particularly severe way from the conflict, we were blessed to visit Bethlehem University, a Catholic university operated by the Holy See and the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the same Brothers who operate Christian Brothers College High School. Because its students are all Palestinian, the university has suffered from all of the restrictions placed on Palestinians in entering and leaving Bethlehem. The university was under military closure from October 1987 through October 1990, and, in recent years, has suffered physical damage from direct attacks on its buildings. The Christian Brothers and the other members of the administration and faculty, however, bravely continue their mission of offering to the young Palestinians, both Christian and Moslem, a brighter future through a sound university education. We, for instance, were treated to a delicious lunch prepared by the students in the Department of Hotel Management and Tourism. To witness the joy and hope of the faculty and students of Bethlehem University was truly an inspiration.
I would never encourage my brother priests to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land if I thought that their lives would be in serious danger. During the whole time of the pilgrimage, I never felt that we were in any unusual danger. At the same time, I found that, in general, both the Israelis and Palestinians treated us, as pilgrims, with great respect. I remember what a priest and long-time resident of Jerusalem told me during my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2005. He urged me to lead more pilgrimages because, in his words, "pilgrims bring us (Israelis and Palestinians) closer together."
It is also important for both Israelis of the Jewish religion and Palestinians of the Islamic religion to witness the essential part of the holy places in our Christian faith. A most sad effect of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is the massive emigration of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land, because they can no longer provide a decent and safe life for themselves and their families. It cannot escape us that the holy places will be reduced to lifeless monuments if there is not a resident Christian community to care for them and to celebrate the sacred mysteries in them on a daily basis. Having Christians come on pilgrimage is a great encouragement to our Christian brothers and sisters in the Holy Land who daily care for the holy places of our salvation.
Finally, I assure you that every day of the pilgrimage I had in my prayers, especially at the Holy Mass, the intentions of the faithful of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. I thank those who prayed for us on pilgrimage so that we would have a safe journey and would be spiritually enriched through our visits to the holy places of our Lord Jesus Christ.