On Pilgrimages

I have been in the process of receiving a Grant of Arms from the Queen's Herald in Canada,  and in that process, have had to spend some time considering images and symbols that speak of my life, while connecting with my ancestry.  From the outset,  Canon David Bowyer designed a beautiful coat of arms that drew forward the ancient symbols of the Davidson clan, and answered the motto of the clan chief,  while coupling those historic things with my current story.

The arms tell the story of my family.  The Davidsons were granted the Stag as a symbol of their family centuries ago,  but on my arms it has been changed to a white-tailed deer, a species that inhabited the farm where I grew up.  The Pheons (arrowheads) are an ancient symbol that hail back to the special relationship between the Davidsons and the crown.  And the red hand was originally the Red Hand of Ulster, which spoke of our time spent as Plantation Scots in Ireland. David drew down two fingers on the hand into the hand of a priest in blessing,  connecting the ancient symbol to my vocation as a priest.

The hat at the top is the mark of a priest, and following the tradition of Anglican heraldry,  it has three crimson tassels and two purple cords, which mark a Cathedral Dean.

Finally,  my motto, in latin, reads "Sapientia cum Sinceritate" which means by wisdom and with sincerity.  This answers the ancient Davidson motto of Sapienter si sincere" meaning wisely if sincerely.

But the process was not done with this beautiful design that David did.  There was still a symbol that needed to be included,  and one which speaks to a very important aspect of my life.  The crest that will accompany the coat of arms will feature a scalloped shell; the mark of a pilgrim.

Through the last 23 years in ministry,  I have had the opportunity to make several very significant religious pilgrimages to sights that have long been held to be holy ones.  As well,  I have had the opportunity to make several others, which although they were not to necessarily "holy" places,  they were made holy by the people that I met, and the relationships that grew out of them.

The pilgrimage bug first bit me in 1997, when I made my first trip to the Holy Land.  Walking the Via Dolorosa, following the steps of Jesus from the place where he was condemned, to the place he died, and finally to the place where he was buried, and ultimately rose from the dead was a life-changing experience.  To go the following day,  and to climb down into the grotto of the Nativity, and to see and touch the stone manger only served to amplify that experience for me. And to explore the caves in Bethlehem where St. Jerome translated the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures into the Latin Vulgate Bible was also very moving.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

It was such a profound experience, that 2 years later, I led others on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and this time extended into Egypt,  so that we could walk the way of St. Joseph to St. Sargius Church and see the place where the Holy Family hid out while escaping Herod. A few years later,  I had the chance to walk through Rome with friends and end up at the place where St. Peter is buried, and then on to Turkey to walk through Ephesus to the home where St. John took the Blessed Virgin Mary after being instructed by Jesus to care for his mother.

While on sabbatical this past summer,  I took a different sort of Pilgrimage. In Colombia, I simply walked with the people there, and allowed them to show me the beauty of their faith, and the wonders of their home.  And in Amazonia,  I had the chance to work and pray and worship with the people of the Amazon, and come to see their incredible faith and love.  Although not traditional pilgrimage sights,  there was a very special holiness that came of both these experiences. They were life-changing experiences for my faith.

It brings me to think of yet another pilgrimage that God has set me on during the same 23 year period.  It has also been a walk with the saints.  It has also been a life-changing experience for my faith.  23 years ago,  when I said yes to those vows and entered into the ministry of the church as a clergy person, I began a walk with God's people that, while sometimes frustrating, has enriched and enhanced my life in too many ways to name.

St. David's Cambridge

St. Thomas the Apostle, Cambridge

At St. David's Church, Cambridge, (Now closed and deconsecrated) I learned the beautiful hospitality of the Newfoundland people.  I learned that a good laugh is perhaps one of God's greatest gifts.  At. St. Thomas the Apostle in Cambridge, with a generation of British immigrants who had survived and worked through the depression and the second world war, I learned about the holy gift of perseverance. And as that pilgrimage took me on to St. George's of Forest Hill,  my heart was touched by an active outreach ministry that put the focus on the world outside the walls of the church.  Although this pilgrimage didn't involve a flight to some far away place,  just as I walked in the footsteps of Jesus to the cross, or the footsteps of Peter to Rome,  or St. John to Ephesus, this pilgrimage at home has brought my walking down the path of faith with more recent saints; saints that were still very much alive.

St. George's of Forest Hill, Kitchener

Now that Pilgrimage has taken a new turn and set me in a fresh direction.  As I make preparations for walking with the people of St. George's Cathedral in Kingston beginning in September,  I do so with a sense of excitement about what new lessons God has in store for me as the path in front of me gains new footprints to follow in.

St. George's Cathedral , Kingston

Each time I see that scalloped shell in my new crest,  I pray that it will remind me of more than simply the pilgrimages I have taken walking in the paths of ancient saints.  May it remind me of that great pilgrimage that God set me on so many years ago, walking the path with his saints today.

And watch the blog over the coming year, as I begin to make plans for a pilgrimage to walk in the footsteps of St. James on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.