A Retired Rector's Reflections

Now I am retired I am able to do several things that I couldn’t when working as a parish priest. Today, for the first time, and probably the last time, I went on a seven church pilgrimage on Maundy Thursday – sometimes called the Visita Iglesia. The aim is simple, to visit the altars of repose in seven different churches, and to pray in each. There are devotional aids to help do this. My special prayer intention was to pray for the sisters and brothers of the Society of Catholic Priests, at a ‘busy time’ and a profound time for many of them. It was my pleasure and a duty for me to do this as the Society’s Provincial Rector for our Europe province.

The experience was a little like an open gardens event. Going from place to place and pausing and seeing the beautiful altars, arranged to recall the garden of Gethsemane. It was indeed lovely to see the care and effort church people had put in to create their place of prayer. Candles, flowers, subdued light and in some cases incense and music create special places within the church, places where the senses enriched spiritual experience. In all it was lovely to find people quietly praying. Maundy Thursday prayer at the specially prepared altar has an incomparable depth and poignancy which captivates the imagination.

Unfortunately it was not easy to arrange my little pilgrimage. Fewer churches than in the past hold a Maundy Thursday Vigil and many that do conclude the Vigil at 9pm, which makes the journeying rather pressed. I had to find a few Vigils finishing at 10pm or Midnight so my journey was not too rushed. I had to travel much further than St Philip Neri did in the 16th century. He is said to have begun this tradition in Rome, and no doubt there, in a city, it was much easier than South West County Durham in the 21st century.

Nevertheless this little pilgrimage on this special evening was a beautiful thing to do, and in each place I felt spiritually nourished in different ways. I also sensed a connection between the places as, together, but apart, in their own churches, people prayed. The connection went deeper as I considered pilgrims of the past doping this devotion, and together all keeping watch and praying in the presence of Our Lord, on the night he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane.