Pilgrim
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A pilgrim (from the Latin peregrinus) is a traveller (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system. In the spiritual literature of Christianity, the concept of pilgrim and pilgrimage may refer to the experience of life in the world (considered as a period of exile) or to the inner path of the spiritual aspirant from a state of wretchedness to a state of beatitude.
Quotes
[edit]- And by the happie blisfull way
More peacefull Pilgrims I shall see,
That have shooke off their gownes of clay,
And goe appareld fresh like mee.- Sir Walter Raleigh (?), The passionate mans Pilgrimage (1604)
- We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further; it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,- James Elroy Flecker, Hassan of Bagdad (1922), Act 5, Scene 2
Unsourced
[edit]- Even pilgrims' feet sweat. (Stanisław Jerzy Lec)
- Conversion: this is the word that most specifically expresses the meaning of pilgrimage. (René Laurentin)
- It is curiosity that shapes the pilgrim no less than devotion. (Abraham Cowley)
- The pilgrims, who love the land that brings them - and this for the sole fact that it brings them towards that foreign country that they love more than anything else - otherwise they would not be on their way. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
- True pilgrims are those who leave to leave. (First Mazzolari)
- Does the pilgrimage have value if the road led the pilgrim to a different destination? (Stanisław Jerzy Lec)
- Pilgrimage liberates the spiritual dimension in each person and allows him to recognize his vocation as a child of God. (Jacques Jean Joseph Jules Perrier)
- The true pilgrim walks the path with nothing, lives on offerings, depends only on the generosity of others and brings with him everything he possesses. The pilgrim is poor and must suffer. (The Road to Santiago)
- While the holidays indicate that life is on a journey towards God, the processions and pilgrimages take us out of the usual rhythm, they make us understand that we are not tied to the normal conditions of existence but that we have spaces of freedom, that we can consecrate the our life to God, we can direct it to Him, just as a pilgrimage is directed to its end. (Carlo Maria Martini)
- Pilgrim, on your journey | you could go far, | because, pilgrim, it is a long journey | the one to find out who you are... (Enya)
- By the grace of God I am a man and a Christian, by actions a great sinner, by vocation a pilgrim of the most miserable kind, wandering from place to place. My earthly possessions are a pouch on my back with a little dry bread and, in the inside pocket of my shirt, the Holy Bible. Nothing else. (Tales of a Russian Pilgrim)
- Poets, painters and pilgrims are soothsayers in what they say and do. (Italian proverb)
- Red evening and black morning cheer up the pilgrim. (Tuscan proverb)
