Seventh Sunday after Pentecost - July 7, 2024
Father Vincent Pizzuto, Ph.D.
St. Columba's Episcopal Church
Ezekiel 2:1-5 + Psalm 123 + 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 + Mark 6:1-13
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I speak to you today in the name of the + Three-in-One and One-in-Three. Amen.
On weekends in which I lead retreats, I typically use my Sunday reflections to bring the rest of the congregation into conversation with the main themes or experiences of the retreat for those who may have missed it. So, I could hardly make a two-week trek to Iona and back, and not attempt to weave together some of the experiences, insights, labyrinths, and “Boon” (as it were) that I bring home with me today.
Overall, the image of a Celtic knot comes to mind as an apt metaphor that weaves together the whole pilgrimage: complex, entangled, organized (but not!), Geometric yet organic, pretty from afar, but in many instances far from pretty – The excitement of seeing a new land and its people, the beauty of ancient Scottish cities and the wind-swept coasts of Iona. The moving testament of the 13th Century Abbey, which still stands as a sentinel to the perennial presence of Christianity on the holy Isle since the year of our Lord 563.
The weather throughout our sojourn was overall fair, and the near-perpetual sunlight throughout all but the deepest of night was enchanting. Our strolls through Edinburgh were charming, and the beauty of the Scottish countryside enroute to Oban mirrored the breathtaking beauty of our own Tomales Bay and rollingWest Marin terrain. The people were delightful and the food was…well…Scottish (with perhaps a few notable exceptions). Our shared time together allowed for a series of conferences on various themes ranging from a deconstruction of “Celticity,” to the unique approach Celt’s had of peregrinatio; An exploration of our interior dreamscapes, the theme of Anam Cara (or soul-friendship), as well as an exploration of Celtic forms of prayer and blessings. In addition, fellow peregrini led us on Circle Walks, walking meditations, and the exploration of caims (or sacred circles used to create space for prayer and ritual).
Carl had organized a local woman to give us a tour of the Abbey and lesser known, but no less charming nunnery. And our pilgrimage tour of the island, replete with sing-a-longs and the prayers we prayed at the various holy sights was deeply moving. Many of us made a spontaneous tour to St. Columba’s Bay where tradition has it our patron landed ashore in 563. Moreover, after a thorough introduction by Peter and Terrey many of us participated in a self-organized hike up Dun-Í (the tallest peak on the island which reaches a whopping 333 feet above sea level). Dun means “hill” (where we get our word “dune”) and I (the letter “I”) stands for Iona. And while there, we all washed our faces in a traditional ‘fountain of youth’ -- the effects of which I am desperately hoping are apparent to you all. Our Morning eucharistic liturgies and evening compline services were simple and solemn. But perhaps none rivaled the one chance we had to celebrate the Eucharist together around the main altar of the Abbey itself. The presence of the ancients was palpable.
But of all the gifts given and received over the course of our time on Iona, there is one hidden, and unexpected treasure the island has gifted me that comes in the guise of an old Irish saying:
To go to Rome
is much of trouble, little profit;
The King whom thou seekest there,
Unless thou bring Him with thee,
Thou wilt not find.
This is no doubt a sage cautionary note to any Christian in the ancient Celtic lands who might have been contemplating a pilgrimage to Rome. But when you live not in Inverness, Scotland, but Inverness California, the subject of that now time-honored proverb might just as well read as follows:
To go to Iona
is much of trouble, little profit;
The King whom thou seekest there,
Unless thou bring Him with thee,
Thou wilt not find.
As many of us realize, Peregrinatio for the Celts had the distinctive characteristic of not being a pilgrimage TO somewhere, but rather a journey taken for its own sake, or rather “peregrinatio pro amore Christi” (a pilgrimage for the love of Christ). The emphasis was not on “where you were going?” but on “what you were leaving behind?” Family and friends, community and the comforts of home, all that was familiar and which gives us a sense of identity. In short: A pilgrimage made purely for the love of Christ (pro amore Christi).
All of it left behind on a journey to nowhere, or better, a journey to “now-here” – in what became known as “white martyrdom.” In an age of religious tolerance by Rome when Christians were no longer being killed for their faith (i.e., “Red Martyrdom”) Christians now sought a kind of “white martyrdom” (a bloodless dying to a corrupt world to which much of Christianity had accommodated itself). It was a journey to a more radical commitment to the Gospel, a deeper reliance on Providence, and a child-like trust in God.
For the Celts, Perigrinatio was about throwing caution to the wind and allowing the Spirit, who, like the wind, blows where it will. It was a lifting of one’s spiritual sails to be carried by the Spirit to what the Celts called the place of our resurrection.
And that is key: Peregrinatio was about discovering the place of one’s resurrection: which is to say, the place where you come to new life, where you find your true self, awaken to your Christ-nature, and so on. And that marked your destination: an interior epiphany of Christ not an exterior physical location. To that end, our pilgrimage specifically to Iona in no way mirrored this rich Celtic understanding of pilgrimage as pro amore Christi. To the contrary, it mirrored the more widespread continental notion of pilgrimage to a specific place. And if I am to be honest, a good deal of that was ‘much of trouble little profit.’
Aside from the COVID outbreak and its deleterious impacts on our time together; Aside from the perpetual threat that my return flight would be cancelled on account of an Aer Lingus strike that began two days after I arrived in Scotland;…and did I mention the Scottish cuisine? Right! Aside from the jet lag, and the revolting instant coffee (“Coffee” is too dignified a term, for what I came simply call, “a caffeinated beverage”). Aside from all of those little challenges that travel brings with it…there were the perpetual attractions, or what I came to think of as the ‘bright shiny objects:’ The stunning stone edifice of the ancient abbey; The bleach white sandy beaching and Caribbean blue ocean; St. Oren’s Chapel which has the best acoustics of any chapel I have ever been in; The solemnity of medieval cloister; The cozy cafes and gift shoppes; The charming quirkiness of the locals (reminds me a lot of us); The peak of DUN-í and the rocky beaches of St. Columba’s Bay, boasting the oldest known rock on the planet dating back over 3 billion years! The quiet gardens of the nunnery…The gentle lambs that were so close along our paths we could reach out and touch them; and the not-so gentle mama-cow who, in an effort to separate us from the calf we didn’t know she had, kept cutting us off at the pass with the threat of a head-but! (the sheer size is scary when up close).
The problem, the perpetually beautiful problem with all of these things is that they were all like bright shiny objects demanding my attention the whole week. You can’t come all the way to Iona and NOT see the Abbey, Dun-í, St. Columba’s Bay, and so on…So there is a kind of understandable pressure to do, do, do, see, see, see, go, go, go. Add to that our morning Masses and evening compline, our scheduled meals and conferences, rituals, and meditations, and one finds there is actually little time to go inward, little time to really moved into or hold a contemplative space. I don’t share that as a complaint, but simply as a fact – one that I had not really anticipated beforehand. So, by mid-week, something began to dawn on me:
While much of my attention was being consumed by all the sights and sounds of the Island, it was in the stolen moments hiking with a friend, the quiet late-night conversations, the unofficial “grief walks,” an intimate conversation over coffee…It was these moments that became the most treasured of my pilgrimage. And I realized they all had one thing in common: They were not about the place I was visiting…they were about the people I was with.
When opening space in oneself for contemplation, one is aided by many things our pilgrimage could not offer: routine, familiarity, predictability. We see, for example, how much of those very qualities are very intentionally fostered by a monastic schedule of prayer. Likewise, what I began to realize is that gazing over Tomales Bay from the hills of St. Columba’s Inverness is far more contemplative (if you will) than gazing over St. Columba’s Bay in Iona.
I could see with greater and greater clarity that what mattered most was not the cadre monks of monks who in ancient times, accompanied St. Columba to the founding of his monastery, but the rather what mattered most was our own Beloved Community who, in present times, accompanied one another to the same Island. What mattered most was not the once-in-a-lifetime privilege of presiding at the altar of the ancient Abbey, but the weekly privilege of presiding at this altar: Because what Inverness, CA, has that Iona Scotland doesn’t is YOU. Is Us. Is our Beloved Community.
Like so many pilgrims before me (and no doubt many who will come after) I went to Iona seeking my place of a resurrection: a solace, a grace – something the holy island might have gifted me as I grieve the recent passing of my mother. But what I have learned in the meantime, was that all the graces I sought, all the treasures my heart longed for, all the solace and the comfort, had accompanied me from the start – our own beloved community.
To go to Iona
is much of trouble, little profit;
The King whom thou seekest there,
Unless thou bring Him with thee,
Thou wilt not find.
And what follows from that, if I might paraphrase the Japanese poet, Mat-suo BA-Sho: Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the ancient Celts, rather, SEEK WHAT THEY SOUGHT.
In other words, it is not ours to simply mimic what the ancient Celts did in the 7th century, but rather, like them, seek what the Spirit is calling us to do in the 21st. And that is precisely the holy work I see unfolding in all of you, with nary a need to step one foot out the door. I want to close then with not an ancient Celtic blessing penned by Columba or any of the 12 Apostles of Ireland, I want to close rather with a Celtic Blessing penned by one of our very own peregrini, Carl [Diehl], who journeyed there and back again:
May we always remember the longing that summoned to this faraway
island,
May we always remember what made us answer that call,
May we always remember our happy anticipation as the ferry rushed us towards the glistening lona shore and Abbey glowing in the afternoon sun on the bank above,
May we always remember the excited climb up Dun I and the giddy
washing of faces at Bridget's well,
May we remember too, the gathering of golden green pebbles where Columba himself waded ashore,
May we especially remember how our love for each other carried us past dark walls of the labyrinth of Covid that held us prisoner for a while,
May we remember and cherish our pilgrimage to lona, where we embraced and loved each other encircled by howling winds, and dancing clouds and warming sun on this faraway island on the edge of the earth
And may God bring us safely to a place called home with that quiet flame of love for each other still burning in our hearts.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
+ The Three-in-One and One-in-Three