The Life of Christ, a Pilgrimage

St. Teresa of Avila

Born in the volatile religious climate of 16th-century Spain, St. Teresa emerged as a profound mystic, reformer, and ultimately, as an enduring spiritual guide whose teachings continue to illuminate the path for seekers of spiritual wisdom. As the first female Doctor of the Church, an honor bestowed upon her by Pope Paul VI in 1970, her theological and spiritual contributions hold a place of high esteem in the Church’s history.

My Burden Is Light is a collection of sermons by Saint John of Avila on suffering in the Christian life. In this excerpt taken from the work, Saint John compares Christ to a pilgrim or wanderer.

Jesus Christ Takes on the Disguise of a Wanderer

Something that caused me a great admiration is recounted to us in the Gospel. He appeared to His disciples in the figure of a pilgrim or a wanderer. In Latin, not only a pilgrim, but a traveler. It’s already taken up in that term. In it, I want to treat this step that I proposed. Thus I think the evangelist—one of those who came to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast—used it.

I say, then, that it is a thing of admiration and fear for me, to hear that Christ disguises Himself, that He takes on the mask of a pilgrim. If a knight, a prince, a king disguises himself, they do not cause fright because they do it many times, to pass the time, to enjoy some feasts. God, who does not do anything suddenly and without forethought, who disposes all things in wisdom—who will say that He disguises Himself and takes on another persona? And further: even if He wanted to disguise Himself, what is this? He did not take on the disguise of a knight, of a king, of an emperor, of a consul, of a high priest, of a prophet, but rather He takes the mask of a pilgrim.

In this, it is necessary that we take as a firmest presupposition, as a very certain thing, that this was not without a great mystery, since all of His works have one in themselves. Therefore, the diligence we take in discovering it will not be superfluous or wasted.

So you would understand in one word what I thought to say and declare in many, I say that He took it on because of this, because, in everything, His life strangely agrees with that of a pilgrim. The whole life of Christ was nothing else but a pilgrimage, a wandering, as Bernard says, the end, etc. We could see this, if we want, in that saying of the prophet: Like a pilgrim in the land, and a traveler turning towards lodging.

He was, in everything, like a stranger and pilgrim, a traveling man. This seems clearer if we consider the things that concurred in Christ, in His life and death, for this purpose. What particularity makes a pilgrim? In what does he differ from other men; why [is he] unknown?

First Particularity

The first [particularity] I find in the habit. He dresses in a crude cloth, which can better withstand the storms of the sky; he has a cape of thick cloth, and along with this, that wrap themselves in leather in order to better defend themselves against the water, and so that, in this poor habit, they might not be recognized in the lands through which they have to pass.

The Word, equal with the Father, wanted to make a pilgrimage and to pass through the world as a pilgrim. He puts on clothes of thick cloth, the sackcloth of our humanity; He passes by, unknown, with this clothing, and He was so, lest they recognize Him, etc., in order to receive, in it, the waters and storms of torments that they were to unleash upon Him; that rain of lashes and hail of pains, flood of blows and wounds, injuries, that whole whirlwind unleashed upon that clothing of His humanity. It stopped there, for it could not reach what was within; the soul was in quietest glory and rest, because, in the holocaust of the patriarch Abram, the ram’s throat was slit, but Isaac was safe and saved, which was a sketch of that other [sacrifice].

Second Particularity

Second, he is known to be in poverty. They do not have their own houses. Today they are in one inn or hospital, tomorrow in another; they are in a foreign land, beyond their nature. In this, we well find Him a pilgrim.

He says of Himself: Foxes [have] dens, etc. He had no income, house, nor possession. Saint Mary received Him as poor, and others helped Him with His household, He being the Lord of all the [households] of the world, though He is born in another’s house, though, on the day of His death, they buried Him in another’s shroud and another’s sepulcher, and they celebrated His funeral.

“How? Great God, are You not Lord of all that is created? How do You lack what is needed?”

“Because here I am a pilgrim: My kingdom is not, etc., to be persecuted. Up there, in heaven, in that life which is forever, I will reign in glory and eternal rest.”

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This article is taken from a chapter in My Burden Is Light: Suffering and Consolation in the Christian Life by Saint John of Avila which is available from TAN Books.