What does it mean to be a pilgrim in 2025?
June 20, 2025
On Friday 20 June, Assistant Head, Mr Grant, addressed assembly on the theme of pilgrimages and recounted his own experiences of following in a pilgrim's footsteps. Read a transcript of the assembly below...
‘To be a pilgrim’. What on earth does it mean ‘to be a pilgrim’ in 2025?
Well, last summer, I decided to find out by making a pilgrimage of my own.
The words in the hymn we have just sung were written by the 17th-century writer John Bunyan who describes a Christian’s journey through the difficulties of life to salvation. However, it was a different literary figure that I had in mind: Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century poem, the Canterbury Tales, imagines a disparate group of pilgrims setting out from a tavern in London on a journey to Canterbury Cathedral; the most notable site of pilgrimage in medieval England where Christians would visit the site of Saint Thomas Becket, the Archbishop and martyr who, as you may recall from L4 History, had been murdered on the authority of King Henry II. As they travel, Chaucer imagines his pilgrims telling stories to one another to pass the time, some are comical, some are satirical, some are deeply serious and they reflect the range of medieval society and human behaviour.
I’d studied Chaucer as part of my English A Level and it was this journey that I hoped to complete on foot, following the one hundred miles of the old pilgrimage route over six days from central London to Canterbury. In this eccentric endeavour, I was joined by two heroic colleagues: Dr Cornell and Revd Child and, one morning in late July, we set off on our journey.
Beyond a lot of walking, what did I expect? Pilgrimage is an important feature in many of the world’s religious traditions. Hindus travel to Benares to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges, Muslims are obliged to travel on pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lives, and Jews travel to the Western Wall in Jerusalem to pray. Throughout the centuries, Christians have gone on pilgrimage to holy sites such as Canterbury, Walsingham or Rome.
Yet, is arriving at the destination the most important aspect of a pilgrimage? When I finally arrived at Canterbury, despite the beauty of attending Evensong in the cathedral, I confess that my overriding concern after six days of walking was to sit down in a café and eat an enormous chocolate brownie. Which I did.
Indeed, it isn’t the arrival in Canterbury that sticks in my memory. In Christianity, the New Testament tells of travels in which it is the journey itself rather than the destination that is important. God is found, not in a sacred place, but literally on the road. As we have just heard from our reading, it is whilst walking on the road to Emmaus that two men encounter the risen Christ as they walk and talk together, their hearts burning within them. They return immediately to Jerusalem, where they started and don’t loiter in Emmaus at all. Famously, it is on the road to Damascus – rather than in Damascus itself – that Saul – later St Paul – is struck blind and is transformed from being a persecutor of Christians to one of the greatest apostles. I won’t claim our journey was nearly as significant as these but, on a pilgrimage, perhaps the end of it is not the main point.
We certainly faced some difficulties on our journey. Whilst we encountered neither hobgoblin, nor foul fiend, we did endure some desolate parts of south-east London, bruised and blistered feet, and an irritating Dutchman who ran an overpriced pub near Maidstone. Unlike Chaucer’s pilgrims, we did not tell particularly notable stories. Indeed, Dr Cornell and Revd Child had to listen to my moaning about my sore feet and my varying opinions on the efficacy of blister plasters.
Yet, what a delight it was to experience the beauty of the English countryside in high summer. The chalk downs, the deep woods and the vineyards and orchards of Kent. We live in a beautiful country and it is always good to be reacquainted with that. Simple things: the welcome shade of an oak tree on a hot day, the first sip of a well-earned drink, removing walking boots after 26 miles. A particular joy for the three of us was the extensive breakfast menu (and very reasonable prices) at the Wetherspoons on Dartford High Street.
Returning to London took less than an hour on England’s only high-speed rail line. Back in the centre of the city, we rejoined the fast pace and busyness of life. In 2025 we are used to everything being quick and instantaneous: fast travel, immediate information, rapid communication, instant coffee. We live in an impatient age, always rushing to get… where exactly? Walking: slowly, deliberately, we can force ourselves to encounter life at a more reasonable pace. We can be more alert to our experience in the present.
For Christians – for John Bunyan - life itself can be seen as a pilgrimage: a journey of faith and potential transformation through which we can understand ourselves, our lives and God.
So, to be a pilgrim today? Well, try it – in your own way: slow down, reflect, notice, keep going through uncertainty and discomfort, walk alongside others and listen as you go on your way. Those men on the road to Emmaus returned – transformed - to their starting point, Jerusalem. Perhaps, as another poet, TS Eliot, puts it, ‘the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.’
