Pilgrimage to India

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I’m excited about leading a group of friends from the United States to India on a pilgrimage this fall, tracing the footsteps of Saint Thomas, the apostle. The group mainly consists of lay folks from churches where I had previously served as a priest. For me, this visit to India, particularly Kerala, is a show and tell of the place I was raised in as a Christian and formed by the cultural ethos of a tradition that dates back to the early days of the Acts of the Apostles. It is an eighteen-day-long tour covering certain popular tourist attractions in Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, known as the Golden Triangle in the north, and some of the areas in the southern states of Kerala and Chennai, where Apostle Thomas is said to have preached the gospel, founded Christian communities, and martyred in the first century.

I intentionally referred to this journey as a pilgrimage, even though it has elements of a tour, a fact-finding mission, or a vacation. Generally, when people from North American churches make trips to a previously colonized country, it is a mission trip. In contrast, if it is to a Western or Middle Eastern country, it is a pilgrimage. Vestiges of the bygone colonialist attitude are still prevalent in some of our churches. Still, how could I elevate this journey as a pilgrimage, given our belief that Saint Thomas came to the Malabar Coast of India and preached, which is based on certain legends? Here, I use the word pilgrimage in the same sense as some of the most familiar ones, such as the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, which is built on the belief that Saint James had been there and was buried at the site. What makes a pilgrimage a pilgrimage is not the historical accuracy of the claims made about a particular place. Pilgrims visit these places not to verify the evidence by placing their fingers on the wounds or by touching the side of Jesus, as Thomas demanded. People go on pilgrimages to be surprised by the Divine. I don’t rule out God doing a new thing in our midst or offering a serendipitous moment to those of us who are on this pilgrimage.

While one can experience a pilgrimage and divine surprise right where one is, without ever putting one foot in front of the other, the Indian pilgrimage takes us through a land that gave birth to Hinduism and Buddhism, spawned the growth of so many religious sects, and allowed followers of Abrahamic religions to thrive and flourish. Theologian Richard Niebuhr says, “Pilgrims are persons in motion, passing through territories not their own, seeking completion or clarity; a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way.” Those of us who are on this pilgrimage may differ in our intentions or agenda. However, by placing ourselves on the road that has been trodden over millennia, and where countless have been enlightened or touched by the divine, we, too, I hope, may see ourselves in the line of fire for an encounter or surprise with the divine.an-pilgrimage-to-india-855b3add4e68