Rocamadour is a place of legend. It emerges, high upon a cliff, from fog and clouds, and seems to brood over the surrounding valley like a mother hen over her chicks. Historically one of the main four pilgrimage spots in Christendom (alongside Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela), this UNESCO site continues to draw spiritual seekers, pilgrims, mystics, and historians from all over the globe. And it’s here that my brother, Dave, and I start our own pilgrimage journey. We’re heading in the direction of Santiago de Compostela, walking about a week along “The Way,” using the Via Podiensis route through southern France.
The Chemin de Saint-Jacques has been welcoming pilgrims (“pèlerins”) since 950. The medieval period saw huge numbers of travelers making pilgrimages of a few days, a few weeks, a few months, and even a few years. From the Protestant Reformation onward to the late 20th century, European unrest and discord turned the hordes of pilgrims to a small trickle, that is, until books and movies started popularizing the transformative potential of the route – starting around 1980. Now it averages over 300,000 people from all over the world walking the many routes (at least 29).
The original purpose of the pilgrimage was to obtain a plenary indulgence. The Church had decided that God would forgive your grievous sins if you opened yourself to illness, robbery, suffering the elements of nature, having no money, and leaving behind all familiarity of friends and family. It’s such an interesting an unlikely concept to me that anyone could have believed this; and now that I find myself on the Way, the issues of fatigue, blisters, healthy digestion, and trying to decipher poorly marked trails, don’t lend themselves to directing one’s attention to a loving and merciful God, or even an angry and condemning God. I have a hard time believing anyone lasted more than one or two days believing that walking all day is what God insists we do when we’ve been very bad.
So I’ve given up on trying to connect, metaphorically, to the medieval pilgrim and instead am focusing on the modern day pilgrims. What is it that makes a third of a million people, each year, leave their homes and set one foot in front of another for days on end?
I imagine some answers will unfold over the course of this journey, but I have several ideas about it now. Adventure probably is high on most people’s list, connecting with history and the millions that have walked these routes before, an abrupt change from the way we generally lead our lives, a chance to unplug from the computer world, a sense of mystery, a love of nature, a desire to challenge oneself and prove something to oneself, increased time to think about life and assess how one’s life is going, and a hope for some kind of personal and spiritual transformation.
The Transformation principle goes to God-awareness – something I firmly believe we are all born with even though many spend much of their lives pushing this away. Of course, organized religion has done a great job of distancing many from any desire to seek the Divine, but that doesn’t mean the task of seeking is not an important one.
It was this seeking that the composer, Francis Poulenc, was experiencing when he visited Rocamadour in August 1936. His reaction to seeing the shrine of the Black Virgin created such passion arising within him that he could only describe it as a conversion experience. He immediately composed “Litanies à la Vierge Noire” upon leaving Rocamadour.
The room that we occupied in Rocamadour was only a few feet from the entrance to the same shrine, the culmination of 216 famed steps that medieval pilgrims used to ascend on their knees while saying the rosary. There was clearly something present that we could sense as we walked through the portals immediately after they were opened in the morning. The fog was lifting, and the simple black statue of the Madonna and child was adorned in a small Easter-season vestment. How many lives had this statue influenced? Who carved her originally? Did he know what he was setting in motion? And most importantly, what is it that makes an object seem holy and set apart from the rest of the world?
All these questions were going through my head as we ventured out into the countryside and began our walk along the Chemin de Saint-Jacques, eager for the mysteries ahead.
– Jonathan Dimmock , 2022