Pilgrimage and the Advancement of SDG5
Dr Bernadette Flanagan
Dublin / Waterford - IRELAND
Presentation Supported by Resources from
Spirituality Institute in Research & Education SpIRE – Dublin
www.spiritualityinstitute.ie
www.wit.ie/spirsop
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a blueprint, created by the United Nations (2015), to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice.
The Aim of SDG 5 is
to achieve gender equality and
to empower women & girls.
Pilgrimage practice has a role to play in achieving this goal,
as well as in achieving many of the other sixteen actions for a more just world.
In 2020 the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief for the UNHCR (A/HRC/43/48) specifically highlighted the role of religious groups in perpetuating norms that promote gender inequitable attitudes.
Hence it is necessary
Pilgrimage narratives have regularly supported patriarchy and required the subordination of women – women are perceived as being in danger of: succumbing to temptation OR being assaulted.
Floire et Blancheflor, written around the year 1150, is the story of a young, widowed and pregnant noble woman who had made a vow to go to Compostela. Even though she is traveling with her father, she is captured by Saracens.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the daughter of Count of Pontieu, on pilgrimage with her husband to pray for a child at Santiago, is raped in Galicia and ends up in a harem.
In the 14th century the Dit des Annelés tells the story of the pilgrimage of a young married knight whose wife is seduced along the way by a bachelor knight.
Many important pilgrim routes are focused on male historical figures.
St James’ Way, SPAIN
Bodh Gaya: INDIA
Site of Buddha’s Enlightenment
Tóchar Phádraig,
Mayo: IRELAND
The Abraham Path in The Middle East
St Olav’s Way, Norway;
Remembering 11th century
King Olav II Haraldsson,
who was later made a saint.
From an intersectional scholarship perspective;
it is necessary to give due recognition to the historical neglect of women’s spiritual leadership in society.
History is a constructed discipline.
It consists of a story driven by attention to certain types of categories of analysis (e.g., power, change, leadership, and conflict) but one that has largely overlooked, until recently, certain categories such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation.
Likewise, certain values undergird the shaping of historical narrative. Historical accounts of women on pilgrimage manufacture dispositions of sexual vulnerability as a cautionary tale against women leaving their abodes.
A justice-oriented perspective would reframe these pilgrimage stories from the perspectives of those who are confined, restricted and deprived of their spiritual integrity and authority.
In order to contribute to the advancement of SDG 5
the historical narratives of three women who exercised spiritual leadership
through the practice of pilgrimage will be explored
EGERIA
MONINNE
MARGERY KEMPE
Egeria was a European pilgrim - probably a vowess from north Spain / south France - who wrote about her pilgrimage to the Holy Land during the late fourth century (381-384). She recorded her experiences in a long letter to women friends. In her energetic, observant and determined narrative of pilgrimage we find a woman who walked a unique path for her time.
McGowan, A. & Bradshaw, P.F. (2018, The Pilgrimage of Egeria. A New Translation of the ‘Itinerarium Egeriae’ with Introduction and Commentary. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press
In her pilgrimage diary Egeria is more interested in visiting spiritual communities and holy people, rather than exploring tombs or monuments.
It is the experience of praying with living spiritual seekers that moves her, and she gladly tells her readers about the night vigils and processions with children riding on their parents’ shoulders which she experienced.
She provides a spiritual autobiography of pilgrimage, rather than a tour travel log
It was always our custom that when we visited a place we desired, we made prayer there; read its story from the Scriptures and concluded with a Psalm relevant to the place. Par 10
Egeria’s words provide a glimpse into a life that for many centuries was invisible and forgotten. Egeria’s travels were not worthy of inclusion in the writings of male historians of spiritual practices.
Neverthless, Egeria’s diary has survived and empowers those who dream beyond the boundaries of current possibilities
While Egeria may have enjoyed a social status which provided some protection for her travels; the existence of Egeria’s diary -which tracks the course of her three-year journey around the ancient Mediterranean - is an empowering resource for all women who choose to migrate for a better life today
Of particular interest in Egeria’s diary is her description of her visit to the shrine of Thecla in Seleucia (Turkey). The visit is vividly described as an experience of overwhelming elation. There Egeria was embraced by a community of women empowered by Thecla’s memory. (Par 23)
According to Christian history, Thecla preached and baptized (activities usually reserved to men). She inspired a movement of empowered women.
These women would travel together telling stories of Thecla and her spiritual gifts. Other women in the Movement of St. Thecla would name their daughters after her, engrave her face on their tombs, and on their oil lamps.
Cave church of Thecla,
And so we see how the story of women can inspire
the hopes and dreams of many other women & girls
Current Killevy Church ruins are the reputed site of Morinne's convent | |
Born | c.435�Donaghmore, County Down Northern Ireland |
Died | c.517 |
Venerated in | Roman Catholicism, Ukrainian Orthodox Church |
6 July | |
Moninne of Killevy
Moninne (435-517); was one of the four great abbesses of the Irish Celtic monastic era – the other three being Brigid, Samthain and Ita.
Each of their inclusive, healing, monastic centres of learning lasted almost 1000 years.
Like a contemporary intern Moninne went on pilgrimage to great centres of learning (Aran Islands; Kildare; Beggerin Island) in order to immerse herself in the emergent wisdom of her day and to prepare for translating it into her own monastic initiative in Kileevy.
ENDA
BRIGHID
IBAR
KILLEVY
Enda (450 – 530) was a warrior-king of Oriel in Ulster, converted by the encouragement of his sister, Saint Fanchea (patroness of Rossory on shores of Lough Erne),; who arranged for him to go to Candida Casa in southwestern Scotland for monastic training.
Ibar (425 – 500) was descended from the tribe of Ui Echach who occupied east County Down. His sister Mella married the king of Wexford. He studied in Lerins (France) – a monastic centre held in high regard by John Cassian.
Map of Moninne’s pilgrim journey
of internship and learning
One story from her Life tells us that
Moninne and her companions
came to a river which was so swollen
That it blocked their passage.
Moninne asked “who is blocking
the flow between us? Has something
been hidden from us?
Yes, a companion replied,
- I stole garlic before we left
Ibar’s monastery.
Pilgrimage walking is increasingly embraced
as a Transformative and Empowering Practice
& may in some small way provide a model for
groups of women to contribute to realising SDG5
Margery Kempe: (c. 1373—1440), is a pilgrim whose autobiography is one of the earliest in English literature. The daughter of a mayor of King’s Lynn, a seaport and market town in Norfolk, England she married John Kempe in 1393 and bore 14 children before beginning a series of pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, Germany, and Spain. She embodies the healing power of pilgrimage for women who have lived through life traumas.
The overall bio-psycho-social-spiritual impact of pilgrimage and its therapeutic benefits is receiving more attention in research today.
In this research we are learning that there is substantial promise in advancing pilgrimage as a transformative, healing intervention for women who have been traumatised by war, migration and trafficking.
J. Dubisch & M. Winkleman (Eds.), Pilgrimage and Healing Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.
Margery’s autobiography has the advantage of speaking candidly about the impact of trauma on her spiritual experience.
Claridge et al. (1990) place a scientific interpretation on her narrative. Applying a psychiatric assessment tool to Margery’s narrative (the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia – Lifetime Version (SADS–L)), the authors conclude that: ‘Given this mixture of affective and schizophrenic features a modern psychiatric diagnosis for Margery Kempe would most likely be ‘schizoaffective psychosis’, precipitated in the first instance by childbirth.’ (Claridge et al., 1990, p.69)
And yet her pilgrimage narrative is attracting a growing readership & can provide healing balm for life wounds that penetrate to the soul.
The Power of the spiritual Practice of Pilgrimage is enjoying a revival today
- in Climate Action
- in Reconciling Communities
- in Peace Making
- in healing the wounds of addiction
- in overcoming self-harm and eating disorders
Perhaps the time has come to explore stories in the storehouse of pilgrimage which will empower the advancement of SDG5 today?