{"id":360730,"date":"2026-08-03T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T05:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/360730\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T05:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T05:00:12","slug":"the-way-not-taken-the-catholic-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/360730\/","title":{"rendered":"The Way Not Taken – The Catholic Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first summer in quite a while that circumstances have prevented me from taking a walking pilgrimage, usually something like the Camino de Compostela (here<\/a>) or the Via Francigena (which nearly killed me a few years ago between the heat and distance (here<\/a>). My favorite, however, is still St. Cuthbert\u2019s Way, which runs from Melrose in Scotland over the mountains on the border with England and down to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m deeply convinced that a walking pilgrimage \u2013 in its combination of the spiritual and the physical on God\u2019s green earth\u2013 is of far greater human and religious value than anything we\u2019ve yet seen in the interminably bureaucratic synodal \u201cwalking together\u201d(here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But it must be a real pilgrimage, and there are disturbing signs<\/a> that many people are now turning even some of the most hallowed pilgrim routes, followed by great saints and penitent sinners over centuries, into just one more self-involved path to \u201cpersonal fulfillment.\u201d There are even pilgrimage \u201cinfluencers.\u201d And those who enter classic pathways in search of \u201cwellness.\u201d (Mercy, Lord.)<\/p>\n

To be clear: a pilgrimage doesn\u2019t have to be a perfect ascetic or soulful exercise. Or a perfect anything. Even in the Middle Ages, Chaucer (realistically) included the lusty Wife of Bath and tipsy Miller in The Canterbury Tales, his poetic account of a group of pilgrims \u2013 sinners as are we all \u2013 on the way to the shrine of the great martyr St. Thomas Becket.<\/p>\n

Anyone who makes a walking pilgrimage even today will find that there are days of drudgery and distraction amid others of lightness and purpose. Sometimes even a single day will take you through many combinations and permutations of highs and lows. In all that, the walking is like life more generally \u2013 with the difference that you\u2019ve chosen, if you\u2019ve chosen wisely, to pursue a particular path to a definite end. Which is not normally something you do every day. And if you\u2019re also lucky, it will make other paths clearer and more bearable.<\/p>\n

There is a kind of \u201cpersonal fulfillment\u201d in all this, but it\u2019s a fulfillment that results from being less focused on yourself and more focused on the Way. I think that this is one reason why the early Christians were often described as followers of \u1f21 \u1f41\u03b4\u03cc\u03c2 (h\u0113 hod\u00f3s) \u201cthe Way\u201d (Acts 9:2, etc.). That Way would be the Very One who told us He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth reflecting on that historical fact. Later, of course, maybe within a decade after the Crucifixion, the name changed: \u201cthe disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.\u201d (Acts 11:26) Which seems to suggest that it was, at least initially, as important to walk the walk as to talk the talk.<\/p>\n

As the disciples on the way to Emmaus and St. Paul on the way to Damascus found out, some earth-shaking things can happen when you leave the familiar and are \u201con the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Pilgrims Arriving at Rome During the Jubilee <\/a>by Claude Bonnefond, 1826 [The MET, New York]<\/p>\n

The apostles travelled far, mostly on foot \u2013 Paul, of course, all over the Eastern Mediterranean; Peter to various places and, with Paul, eventually to Rome; James, maybe (according to later records) to Spain and then back to martyrdom in Jerusalem; Andrew to Russia; Philip to Turkey; Matthew to Ethiopia; Thomas to India, etc.<\/p>\n

Where and how they died in several cases are now, like many ancient things, rendered somewhat uncertain in the mists of time. But we can be certain that they all took seriously Jesus\u2019 great command to preach the Gospel to all nations. Which is why their graves, too, have themselves become places of pilgrimage.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something bracing about getting up in the morning and, instead of following your usual routine or jumping into the car, instead tying on your walking shoes and heading off on you know not what.<\/p>\n

I have friends and family who like what\u2019s predictable and balk at the idea of taking off on unknown paths. I \u2013 sort of \u2013 get that. It\u2019s good and necessary to have a certain amount of predictability in your days. But it\u2019s also an illusion. Even if you\u2019re sitting at home today (which may not be so bad an idea given the current heat wave), you don\u2019t really know what will happen along the way or where you\u2019ll be by evening.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a clich\u00e9, which is to say it\u2019s a known and tested truth that ought to be dusted off and re-appropriated, but life is a pilgrimage whether you know it or not. Not to know that is to consign yourself to the road not taken.<\/p>\n

Let me beg the indulgence of TCT readers and direct you, yet again, to the words of the sommo poeta, Dante Alighieri, in the Inferno. Because he\u2019s given us such a vivid summation of so many truths about the Christian life.<\/p>\n

As you know, or should if you do yourself the favor of turning or returning\u00a0 to the first pages of that greatest of poems, Dante himself (the pilgrim in the story) hesitates before starting on the way. I\u2019m not Paul or Aeneas, he says (both visited the other world while still alive in this one), not on a level with the great Apostle to the Gentiles or the mythical founder of Rome.<\/p>\n

But in fact, as the first lines of the poem make clear, it\u2019s precisely because the verace via era smarrita \u2013 \u201cthe true way has been lost\u201d \u2013 that we all have to put ourselves on the right way again. Not to do so, we soon learn, is to join a pitiful band of people who are not even worthy of condemnation but wander in their chosen pointlessness:<\/p>\n

The world will let no fame of theirs endure;
both justice and compassion must disdain them;
let us not talk of them, but look and pass.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Inf. III)<\/p>\n

So however you manage to do it, dear reader, flee, today, this worst of all fates. It\u2019s summer, but walk towards the light whatever way you can. Shun the way not taken. Walk truly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the first summer in quite a while that circumstances have prevented me from taking a walking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[25],"tags":[173125,173126,173127,173128,10920,95081,173129,65,173130,173131,173132,173133,173134,173135,173136,173137],"class_list":["post-360730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ethiopia","tag-acts-1126","tag-brad-miner-how-they-died-martyrdom-of-the-apostles","tag-camino-influencers","tag-camino-de-compostela","tag-catholic-church","tag-catholicism","tag-dantes-inferno","tag-ethiopia","tag-holy-island-of-lindisfarne","tag-karen-walter-goodwin-eucharisteo","tag-robert-royal-the-way-not-taken","tag-st-cuthberts-way","tag-st-thomas-becket","tag-the-canterbury-tales","tag-the-catholic-thing","tag-via-francigena"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117029819346588178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}