Pilgrimage

Editor’s note: This November, first-time and repeat pilgrims will travel to Israel and Palestine (with the option to also visit Jordan). Fr Robert Hendrickson (Saint Philip’s Rector)and Cn John Kitagawa (Saint Philip’s former Rector) will lead the group, and Shirin McArthur (parishioner) will serve as spiritual director.

Below is a letter from Fr Robert Hendrickson that shares the value he finds in going on pilgrimage.

As many of you know, I’m writing from pilgrimage in Jerusalem this week. It’s my first international trip since the pandemic began; my last one was in January of 2020 when I was on pilgrimage—also to Jerusalem. It seems somehow appropriate that this is where I return to reconnect.

The pandemic created a host of new challenges, worries, stresses, grief, and more for everyone. 

For clergy, the challenge has been a bit different. We’re trained for ministry in particular ways and with particular expertise. The pandemic and its aftermath are pushing many clergy to decide they’re no longer equipped or trained to do what needs to be done. 

Few of us are technology or AV specialists. We’re also not public health experts and weren’t ready for a public reckoning around race or the incredible divisions of our current political season. Many have been trying to figure this out while managing changing and challenging family circumstances, as well. 

Trying to navigate how to pastor and lead in this time has been decidedly different than in the past. So I find it makes sense to return to the place where all of our ministry—lay and ordained—finds its source.

I don’t arrive in Jerusalem expecting some blinding new insight around technical or managerial expertise. What I hope to find here is what I always do: a reconnection to the ancient patterns of prayer and worship offered by walking here with Christ.

Do you have some source to which you may be called to return for renewal? Maybe it’s a place or a person or a prayer. Maybe it has changed in recent years and this new season in your life is one of rediscovering where true joy might be found. 

As I journey here, please feel free to email prayer requests. If you write “prayer request” in the subject line, I will scan those in the mornings and pray at holy sites along the way for those intentions you send. I will pray for the parish daily and I hope that you will do so for me, as well. 

May we all be drawn closer to the source and summit of our hope as we make our way through the changes and chances of these days.