by Tony Kevin
So Catholic Christianity works for me, but I am also comfortable with and respect what I know of Protestant Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I see the three great Abrahamic religions as one family, all growing out of the same hugely creative cultural melting-pot of the ancient world of the Mediterranean and Near East — the world of the great cities of Babylon, Jerusalem, Damascus, Antioch, Athens, Rome, Alexandria, Mecca, Byzantium, Cairo, Baghdad. These three religions, all claiming to possess the sole revealed truth, have coexisted uneasily around the Mediterranean Basin and Levant for over fourteen centuries now; sometimes in great cruelty and bloodshed, but at other times in peace. To me, the many things they have in common are far more important than the differences that separate them. I think those of us who believe this are going to have to go on defending that belief bravely, as the voices of anti-Muslim prejudice grow louder and harsher.
I abhor extremism or fundamentalism in any religion. Although fanatical abuses can happen in all religions — think of recent years’ Buddhist mob violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka, and of similar Hindu abuses against Muslims in India — the Abrahamic revelatory religions seem to have been more prone to religious fanaticism and violence than the generally more contemplative Eastern religions and religious philosophies.
Historically, Jews have often had more to fear from Christians than from Muslims. Islamic rulers have usually provided a more tolerant and nurturing environment for vulnerable Jewish minorities, and it is only since the establishment and expansion of the state of Israel, and the great injuries that this state is causing to displaced Palestinians and to the people of Lebanon, that relations between Jews and Muslims have become so toxic in recent years.
Christian anti-Semitism, on the other hand, has been an ugly cultural reality in many different forms over many centuries. That is why I think the currently popular but misleading phrase ‘Judaeo–Christian civilisation’ has little historical validity or substance.
Spain between the eighth and the fifteenth centuries was a viable ‘Judeao–Christian–Muslim civilisation’, when the three Abrahamic religious communities lived together in peace and mutual respect, and together achieved a high level of civilisation. For most of the history of Islamic-ruled states, until very recently, minority Jewish and Christian communities could usually live securely and with respect for their faiths, as long as they were loyal to the state, observed its laws, and did not proselytise.
It was only for about a century and a half, and after many centuries of intermittent profound mistreatment by their Christian neighbours, that Jews in western and central Europe enjoyed a brief interlude of institutionalised acceptance and full human rights in what could be called a Judaeo–Christian civilisation: this lasted from around the time of the French Enlightenment until the Nazi nightmare. But European anti-Semitism never went away completely in these years, and in Eastern Europe and Russia it remained endemic.
Now, in some ‘Judaeo–Christian’ Western states, Muslim minorities are becoming the new scapegoats — ‘the new Jews’, increasingly mistrusted and excluded and at risk of victimisation, as Jews used to be in Europe. We are still living through a continuing, tripartite, historical tragedy involving the three Abrahamic religions, in which Muslims are now the main victims. The unconscionable attempt by some Western political leaders, who should know better, to emphasise and politically exploit the ‘otherness’ of vulnerable Muslims living in Western multicultural societies is cruel and disgraceful.
I welcomed Pope John XXIII’s ecumenical movement and the miracle of the Second Vatican council from 1962 to 1965, because they affirmed in the church’s doctrine and practice values that I had absorbed as a child from both my parents in their own different ways: tolerance, acceptance of human diversity, celebration of our common humanity, respect for other races and cultures and religious traditions, and a religious culture of openness and generosity. It is wonderful that these values, pressed vigorously by that great reformist pope, have now, under the three succeeding popes, become firmly entrenched in Catholicism, confirming it as a truly universal religion.
I think that part of Catholicism’s tremendous staying-power in the world, its ability to surmount long periods of schism and corruption and institutionalised intolerance and cruelty to non-Catholics, is that its central theology offers wonderful gifts to every person at every stage of life.
I am no theologian, but the thought came to me during my pilgrimage walk that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the three Persons in one God, has huge inner power and strength, because it satisfies all of our spiritual needs: for a God the Father, who is a safe refuge and a strong patriarch who lays down the rules for a good life and protects us as a father from harm; for God the Son, Jesus, our hero and friend, who came to live among us on this earth and sacrificed His life to redeem our sins; and for God the Holy Spirit, the quiet voice of our conscience, the cool, soothing breath that steals into our hurt souls. We reach out to each of the three Persons in God at different times in our lives, according to our needs at those times. And Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, not a goddess but certainly the most loved and cherished of all the Catholic saints, satisfies our widespread human yearning for a spiritual mother figure, a yearning that has given birth to many ‘earth mother’ cults and religions over the ages. Catholicism, for me, has it all.
Finally, there is my proud knowledge that Christianity has generated many things of great worth and beauty during its twenty centuries of existence. In music, in art and architecture, in literature — in our whole European civilisation — the church’s beneficent influence has been a profound inspiration to high culture. Yes, Christianity has been responsible for terrible things, too: the encouragement of ruthlessly bloody Crusades and other wars of religion; inquisitions; and persecutions of non-conformists and religious dissenters. But when I walk into a cathedral or Spanish village church, when I hear a sung Palestrina or Bach or Mozart Mass, when I gaze on a Michelangelo painting, when I read a John Donne or Gerald Manley Hopkins poem, I feel I am part of something glorious, an enterprise so grand that it cannot be simply human in origin. I cannot prove this — I just know it in my heart. Faith makes us stronger and better than we could be on our own. It inspires us beyond the material and the selfish, to higher levels of aspiration and creativity. It transforms our lives into something meaningful.
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When I decided to go on pilgrimage, I didn’t know what to expect of it, except that I was sure it would be healing and strengthening to my bruised beliefs in my society’s continuing worth. That is why I wanted John Eddy to bless my pilgrimage before I set out . As John prayed that God bestow on me the gifts of my pilgrimage and protect my family while I was gone, I bowed my head humbly, knowing that something important was about to happen in my life.
And it truly did. But, as I have explained, there was no magic, revelatory moment in Spain; rather, it was a series of little steps forward, towards a slowly opening door. My pilgrimage opened my heart wider to God; it washed away my emotional constrictions and defence mechanisms; it enabled me to pray more freely and unforcedly than ever before in my life. It gently but insistently urged me to confront my life, warts and all. Everyone I met on the pilgrimage played a part in this: the Mother Superior in Granada who put the first stamp in my passport, and all the priests on the way to whom I introduced myself in churches after Masses and who blessed my journey; Juan, the innkeeper in Alcaracejos who was the first person in Spain to hail the inner significance of what I was trying to do; the hospitable lay brothers at Alcuéscar; Marit and Karin; Tim and Liz; Richard and Aldo and Nigel; the woman at the lavanderia in Ríonegro; John and Marcelino in Laza; the man in Albergueria who hung up my scallop shell on his ceiling; and every fellow pilgrim or villager or innkeeper or hostalero I met who wished me ‘Buen Viaje!’ on the way.
Going to Mass often, both in village churches and in awe-inspiring city cathedrals, was a wonderful spiritua
l nourishment. I felt so at peace with myself attending these Spanish Masses. The last time I went to Mass so regularly was as a boy at Riverview, where it was part of the obligatory daily routine. I chafed under the apparent burden then, and it meant little. But it wasn’t at all a burden in Spain, and it meant a great deal. When I arrived in a village, I would ask if there was an evening Mass: if there was one I could attend, I gladly did so. I bought a little Spanish prayer-book so that I could read the liturgy in Spanish and take part in the congregation’s spoken prayers. It was a wonderful thing to recite in Spanish the Lord’s Prayer with congregations whose worship of God I was privileged as a pilgrim to share:
Padre nuestro, qué estás en el cielo,
santificado sea tu Nombre;
venga a nosotros tu reino;
hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo.
Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada dia;
perdona nuestras ofensas,
como también nosotros perdonamos a los qué nos ofenden;
no nos dejes caer en la tentación,
y libranos del mal.
Then there were the prayers at wayside crosses, of which I passed a great many. I got into the habit of making the sign of the cross and offering a short prayer at every wayside cross or church that I passed. At first, I felt self-conscious at such public affirmations; but after a while it came to be natural.
In Spain on the camino, I was living my religion rather than thinking about it at an intellectual level. The pilgrimage wasn’t a mental exercise in theology on the move. I was not working through ideas about religion and politics, or religion and society. I was giving that part of my brain a rest. What was happening to me was a felt thing.
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My daughters Vanny and Raingsey were confirmed while I was in Spain. I was sad to miss their preparations and Confirmation Mass with their schoolmates and families, but it was wonderful to be able to share it with them from a distance as a pilgrim, praying at this special time in my life for this special time in their lives. In Córdoba, I found confirmation presents to airmail them: for Raingsey, a little silver bracelet of Santiago scallop shells; and for Vanny, similar silver earrings and a pendant of a scallop shell set inside a Star of David. I also sent them prayer cards from Córdoba showing the Holy Spirit as a dove, sending down as flames His seven gifts: sabiduría, inteligencia, consejo, fortaleza, ciencia, piedad, temor de Dios (wisdom, intelligence, good counsel, fortitude, science, compassion, and the fear of God). On the back of the card was the text of a Spanish prayer that I recognised as the Latin prayer often set to music and sung at High Masses: ‘Veni, sancta Spiritus’ (‘Come, Holy Spirit’).
Later, I found that this mighty prayer, one of the greatest masterpieces of sacred Latin poetry ever written, was most probably composed at the height of the twelfth-century Christian renaissance by an English priest, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1228. These were, of course, the great years of the pilgrimage to Santiago. The prayer reads as powerfully and beautifully in Spanish as in its original Latin:
Ven, Espíritu divino,
manda tu luz desde el cielo.
Padre amoroso del pobre;
don, en tus dones espléndido;
luz qué penetra en las almas;
fuente del mayor consuelo.
Ven, dulce huésped del alma,
descanso de nuestro esfuerzo,
tregua en el duro trabajo,
brisa en las horas de fuego,
gozo qué enjuga las lágrimas
y reconforta en los duelos.
Entra hasta el fondo del alma,
divina luz, y enriquecenos.
Mira el vacío del hombre,
si tú le faltas por dentro;
mira el poder del pecado,
cuando no envias tu aliento.
Riega la tierra en sequía,
sana el corazón enfermo,
lava las manchas, infunde
calor de vida en el hielo,
doma el espíritu indómito,
guía al qué tuerce el sendero.
Reparte tus siete dones,
según la fe de tus siervos;
por tu bondad y gracia,
dale al esfuerzo su mérito;
salva al qué busca salvarse
y danos tu gozo eterno. Amén.
After I came home, I found an English translation on the Internet, but it was a bit too florid for my taste. I would rather give you, in all humility, the rough-cut and doubtless highly inaccurate translation that I made while in Mérida from the Spanish, with the help of my pocket dictionary, and sent by letter to my daughters, asking that they read it in time for their Confirmation Day:
Prayer for Your Confirmation Day
Come Holy Spirit, and send Your light down from Heaven.
Father, Who loves the poor, take us into Your hands.
Light, enter my soul; fountain of good counsel.
Come, gently lodge in my soul, relax me from my labours, be a cool breeze in the hottest hours, the joy which dries my tears and strengthens me in my struggles.
Come deep into my soul, Divine Light, and enrich it.
See how empty man is, if You are not with us; see the power of sin, when You do not breathe upon us.
Water the dry land, heal the sick heart, wash our stains away, melt our coldness with Your warmth, tame our restless spirit, guide us if we stray from the true path.
Share Your seven gifts with us according to our faith as Your servants, through Your goodness and grace reward our efforts; save those who seek salvation, and grant us eternal life. Amen.
Not wanting to leave my five-year-old son Julius out of it, I sent him a postcard of Juan Pablo II, 1978–2005, and some Spanish football shorts. I had met Pope John Paul II when he visited Poland in 1992, at a reception for ambassadors to Poland hosted by the Papal Nuncio in Warsaw. One of my greatest treasures now is a framed photo of the pope shaking hands with me on that day. It hangs above Julius’ bed now.
On the day that Vanny and Raingsey were confirmed, 4 June, I was praying in the great cathedral at Plasencia, asking God to protect them and give them good and happy adult lives. I can truthfully say that my prayers were with them all the way during my weeks in Spain, and I believe the Holy Spirit came into us all on this special day.
Now, as Santiago was finally approaching, I felt that my heart was as cleansed and refreshed and open to God as it was ever likely to be in this life on earth, and I was happy.
chapter fourteen
Pilgrimage’s End
Now I walked from Xunqueira into Ourense, an easy twenty- kilometre morning walk, mostly gently downhill, along quiet minor roads undulating through hills and valleys, past small farms, lush gardens, and vineyards, through increasingly built-up country that gradually merged into the garden suburbs of Ourense, a substantial city of 96,000 people. I passed a hairdresser and had my first haircut in Spain, the short-clipped cut from eight weeks before in Australia having grown shaggy. Then I walked on into the city through an attractive old stone village, Seixalbo, on a road which led me directly into a long downhill avenue to the Río Miño.
At the busy city junction at the bottom, I veered right, walking uphill along a long, stately avenue flanked by six-storey apartment buildings and street-level shops, until I found at the very top of the hill my pilgrim refugio, a comfortable dormitory in the Convento San Francisco, a substantial, old sandstone building overlooking the old city which is built on slopes down to the river below, facing a range of higher hills across the river: a beautiful setting for a city. I settled in, showered, rested, and went out in the early evening to go to Mass in the Cathedral of St Martin and to see the town.
Ourense was a warm and welcoming city, filled with young, stylish, and vivacious people. It had the feel of a university town. Around the Romanesque thirteenth-century cathedral was an attractive pedestrian precinct w
ith sophisticated clothes and jewellery boutiques, bookstores, and restaurants and bars. It was a youthful, lively, and happy crowd strolling around, and it all somehow reminded me of my student life at Trinity College, Dublin, forty years before.
I went and sat in the main city park. All the sidewalk cafés were filled with people, and there was an exciting buzz of movement and voices and laughter as dusk came on. People were casually and comfortably elegant, cool, even hip. I was struck by the kind of urbanity that I had last seen in Córdoba, at the other end of Spain. At 10.00 pm on a Friday night, here was a wonderful diversity of people enjoying themselves together in the streets of old Ourense: young courting couples; groups of girls or young men getting together in readiness for a night out on the town; family groups of parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts sitting together and enjoying the company of their young children; and older people quietly watching and enjoying it all — the rich human texture of a civilised small city. There was a sense of fun, of warmth and love in the family groups, of a pleasurable tingle of sexual anticipation in the young people at that wonderful time of life when every night out is a potentially life-changing experience … but I saw no alcohol-fuelled aggressiveness or anti-social behaviour. I saw a human society at peace with itself.
I wondered if we could ever again recapture in our brittle and suspicious Anglophone urban cultures that vital capacity to relaxedly enjoy one another’s company in city streets. Could we regain that precious quality of community life in an integrated civic society, without cordoning ourselves off into mutually exclusive and wary demographic boxes: slick young urban professionals, competitively flaunting their brief moment in life of mindless affluence; moody and alienated young outsiders looking on in resentful poverty and disappointed hopes; worried young couples stuck at home in their mortgaged-to-the-hilt houses, eating cheap, fast-food takeaway meals and watching cheap, rented DVDs, trying to keep costs down; the forgotten old in their lonely flats and retirement homes; and bored, neglected children sitting alone, playing games at Internet consoles — all wondering where real life and community had gone?