The Progress of Pilgrimage: Post-Modern Forms of an Ancient Practice

What is pilgrimage in our time? This project seeks to examine the post-modern import of an ancient spiritual practice through the lenses of two different but complementary spiritualities, Ignatian and Lutheran. The Ignatian tradition emphasizes availability, but can be exteriorized into a spirituality of accomplishment, while the Lutheran emphasizes a more inward transformation, which can focus on centeredness and forget the graces that may come with the risk and vulnerability of the road. Pilgrims, of course, are both seeking and centered, both on the road and at home wherever they find a road and a rest at the end of the day.

We will explore pilgrimages ancient and post-modern. First, we will walk the thousand year-old Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Second, we will join a Jesuit immersion experience in El Salvador, a site of service in a land of martyrs. Finally, we will explore a Lutheran immersion experience in Mexico City. The purpose of these journeys is to explore cultural immersions are a contemporary incarnation of an ancient spiritual practice. In so doing, we hope to communicate in new ways the deep continuity of the fellowship of those who seek God on the road.

Martha E. Stortz, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary

Lisa A. Fullam, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley