v.Summer pilgrimage (time away together)

One of the most rewarding pieces of chaplaincy work can be time spent away with a group, be it for a day, a weekend, a week or more. There is a qualitative shift in gear that can mean, without exaggeration, that more can be achieved in one week away in a different setting than in a year of regular chaplaincy activity. As Paul Rohde observes, “Travel is one of the few conversation topics in which people spontaneously make claims of transformation.” (2013, p.146) They say things like: ‘that trip changed my life’!

Although the changes in university life that have conspired to squeeze out common time make it harder, and although the need for students to gain paid employment as soon as the summer vacation dawns is an ever more urgent imperative, the prize of time away makes it worth striving against these trends.

For fifteen consecutive years I was involved in leading a week long ‘summer pilgrimage’ in late June or early July for a group of students that numbered variously between five and twenty. To some extent destination and distance travelled seemed less important than the experience of community that such trips afforded, though variety from year to year kept up interest. Favourite destinations included:

• Dowdstown House: A Diocesan Retreat Centre in County Meath close to the Hill of Tara, Kells, Newgrange and Dublin
• Northumbia Community: then at Hetton Hall, now Felton (Northumbria), close to Holy Island
• Othona Community: Burton Bradstock, Dorset, close to the Jurrasic Coast
• Bishop’s House, Island of Iona
• Ffald-y-Brenin: retreat House close to St David’s, Pembrokeshire.

Memorably, on two occasions in 2007 and 2010, I led with other Chaplaincy Team members a staff and student pilgrimage to the Holy Land. These trips relied upon the university providing a subsidy to students (in return for volunteering) and was an opportunity that seemed to fit precisely with the ethos of a church foundation university. Both trips were facilitated expertly by Lightline Pilgrimages.

The Holy Land aside, which has its own particular, given rhythm, each ‘pilgrimage’ functioned as an integrated balance of retreat and holiday. An overall theme to the week, shaped to make the most of each geographical and spiritual context, was explored through a pattern of daily shared worship, reflections, prayer walks, and excursions. The week worked best when the content was shaped by the group itself, encouraging the participants to take responsibility for the construction of liturgy and creating multiple opportunities to hear their insights and observations. Concluding the day with Compline, and the opportunity for each person to reflect briefly on what had struck them during the course of that day, was the perfect prelude to a visit to a local hostelry where conversations could weave together and advance  further.

I thoroughly recommend such a way of working. During the course of these weeks many participants decisively discovered or renewed their relationship with God, and not a few gained an insight into where their vocation lay.