At the start of every year I find myself believing that ‘this is the year when I finally sort my life out,’ writes Bishop John.  I have this fond fantasy that with a bit of a tweak here and a bit more effort there I can organise my life as I always hoped it would be – balanced, fruitful, focused. And every year I find it isn’t.

What this repeated experience should be teaching me is that life truly is a journey and the attempt always to ‘arrive’ is a snare and a delusion. The Church rejoices in its conviction that we are a community that never arrives. We were never meant to be a static institution but rather a pilgrim people. Indeed, as Richard Giles puts it, ‘The whole Judaeo-Christian story is a traveller’s tale’. We are always on a pilgrimage from Genesis to Revelation.

Places of pilgrimage are experiencing a resurgence of interest today.  I’m forever falling over people who have just been to Santiago de Compostela or are planning a pilgrimage to Lindisfarne. Our cathedrals are increasingly popular. Virtual pilgrimages can be made online. Labyrinths allow us to journey prayerfully towards God and then out again to serve the world. Faith and nature trails abound.

It’s in that context that I look forward to being joined by many pilgrims from around the diocese as we go to the Holy Land in October. This is the ultimate pilgrimage for most Christians, taking us to the very places where that ‘traveller’s tale’ was enacted. Such a journey touches deep places within us; it opens the imagination; it renews faith; it enables us to meet the direct inheritors of the story.

As one Palestinian in Bethlehem said to me, ‘My great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great (etc) grandmother may have been Jesus’ babysitter!’ A considerable number of people have already booked for this pilgrimage. If you’ve always wanted to visit this treasure-store of faith, do come with me. The Bible will never be the same again. And nor will you.

Connecting with the early church

I found going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land very moving in unexpected ways, writes Lilly Haines-Gadd. I was extremely nervous about the trip beforehand – I was concerned that I would find myself out of step with my fellow pilgrims as I had the idea that I wouldn’t be a “proper” pilgrim somehow: I wasn’t exactly sure what a proper pilgrim was, but I worried it wouldn’t look like me.
I needn’t have worried. The group of 20 that I travelled with was not only friendly and open, but the variety of backgrounds and reasons for making the pilgrimage threw new light on our journey for me, helping me make more connections between the beginnings of Christianity and how we practice it back at home in our everyday lives. Our shared enthusiasm for the journey knitted us together in surprising and touching ways.
We visited an enormous number of places, and had a wonderful guide who put the places we visited in context religiously, historically and culturally; aided by the knowledge of David and Marilyn Parry, who led the trip with great insight and empathy.
There were many moving experiences, but the most profound for me was celebrating the Eucharist on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Many places we had visited claimed to be the site of a miracle or a significant episode of Jesus’ life – but it’s very hard to be exactly sure 2,000 years later. However, we can be confident that Jesus and the apostles lived and walked along that shore, and saw that same view of mountains over a calm sea as we did that day.
Sharing the Eucharist with my fellow pilgrims, celebrated by the Revd Canon Dr Marilyn Parry, whose calm tones have often led me through the same service back at home at Christ Church Cathedral, was the most moving experience of the trip for me. I have remembered it at every Eucharist I’ve attended since, and that connection with the cornerstone and early beginnings of our church will resonate for me for the rest of my life.

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