Deuteronomy 8:1-10; Psalm 84; Luke 9:51-62
Cuthbert is such a special saint that here in Durham Cathedral we celebrate his feast twice a year. First around the day of his death on 20 March 687, and then yesterday 4 September we marked 922 years since the relics of St Cuthbert were translated to their present position in 1104, leading to a flourishing of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages and down to the present day. Your presence here today is a further sign of that.
But yesterday was also a special day for us at Durham Cathedral because we celebrated the official opening of the Cuthbert Centre for Pilgrimage and Prayer, new and refurbished spaces underneath the Deanery which will expand our capacity to welcome pilgrims and encourage pilgrimage to Durham Cathedral. There is growing interest in pilgrimage across our country, and here at Durham Cathedral we want to contribute to that story.
So today, as we celebrate Cuthbert and all things pilgrimage, let me offer some thoughts on what type of journey a pilgrimage is, how St Cuthbert’s life reflects those themes and what they mean for us gathered here today.
First, I want to suggest that a pilgrimage is a journey of remembrance. Pilgrimage is open to people of all faiths and none, but all who undertake one say it helps them step back and reflect on what matters, often done by looking back and recognised what has been received in the journey so far. Moses encouraged the people of God in the desert to reflect on how God had led and provided for them. Pilgrims are invited to be people who are attentive to all that they have received.
Second, pilgrimage is a journey of self-offering. Going on a pilgrimage costs something, certainly in time as walking is a slow form of travel, but also in terms of energy and physical exertion. I remember my own pilgrimage to Durham Cathedral over six days and 109 miles from Melrose, where St Cuthbert was first a monk, saw me arrive with blistered, bleeding feet and sore, sore legs. The words of Jesus to those who promised to follow him speak of a way that is not taken within our comfort zone but rather is shaped by self-offering, the way of the cross which Jesus himself is on. This was the man who had already spoken of the cross that awaited him and now set his face to Jerusalem. Every Christian pilgrimage is ultimately a participation in Christ's own pilgrimage to the cross. And all pilgrims are invited to count and embrace the cost.
Third, pilgrimage is a journey of anticipation. It often involves a destination which lifts the eyes and stirs the heart. Even today as you approach Durham you sense something as you see the Cathedral here on the hill and anticipate what it will be like to stand between these massive, holy pillars. The psalmist certainly felt that when he sang of the joy of being in the Temple of God – better is one day courts than a thousand elsewhere. Pilgrims are people who look forward with hope to a better destination.
Fourth, pilgrimage is a journey with others. Very often pilgrimage is a journey made all the more special by the people we journey with, through whom we can be attentive to the presence and provision of God. All the journeys in our scripture readings – in the desert, up to the Temple, along the Jordan valley to Jerusalem – are journeys undertaken with other people. Pilgrims are people who are willing to encounter God in the other.
We can notice that the life of St Cuthbert reflected these four hallmarks of pilgrimage.
Cuthbert was a man deeply reflective and attentive to the presence of God in the everyday, able to remember and give thanks to God for daily provision – not least through a fish dropped by a bird, or lard brought by a crow. Those stories endured because Cuthbert never forgot the God who provided for him.
Cuthbert was man whose self-offering in leadership and service was patterned on the way of the cross walked by the Lord Jesus Christ. Bede narrates his account of Cuthbert’s life to make clear that Cuthbert did not stay within a comfort zone but gave of himself in mission and in his desire to be with the Lord. You don’t stand in the North Sea all night for the fun of it!
Cuthbert was a man of anticipation, whose hope in his heavenly home gave him all the courage he needed to take great risks in the present and at the last to offer his life and breath back to God. As he took the sacrament for the last time, he knew where he was shortly to go – a better place with the Lord.
Cuthbert was a man who journeyed with others. For all his preference for solitude, he was a man who still walked with many others on the way, offering wisdom and teaching and example – and all of it wrapped in love.
And so we are inspired by St Cuthbert today as we launch the Cuthbert Centre for Pilgrimage and Prayer. We want the Centre to so nurture pilgrimage to Durham Cathedral that people from every background will have the chance to encounter God in the everyday, growing in gratitude, to discover that when we offer ourselves we can know the life of God, to arrive here with real anticipation and to make new friends along the way.
And what of us, as people who have journeyed here today and will shortly come to the altar and receive the Lord in bread and wine? Can I suggest that we can journey with gratitude, remembering and being thankful for the Lord’s blessings great and small – his love poured out on the cross and his strength that enables us to be here at all? We can journey in self-offering, mindful that the way of the cross we are called to walk was walked first by our Lord, whose death we remember in his body and his blood.
We can journey with anticipation, looking forward to a heavenly banquet when we will be satisfied in the presence of the Lord. We can journey with others, celebrating the gift of sisters and brothers in faith and the communion with all the saints.
The presence of St Cuthbert here in Durham Cathedral has stimulated pilgrimage here for over a thousand years. As generations of pilgrims have followed the path to Cuthbert's shrine, may we follow the path Cuthbert himself followed, the path that leads not finally to Durham but to Jesus Christ. Amen.