Pilgrimage barefoot to Mont Saint Michel
Mont Saint Michel | France | 2024
A playful path up a hill of tall dry grass. We’ll be able to manage these few steps. The flags we carry joyfully as children to the overhang slide respectfully against our bodies. At the top, a different world opens up beneath us. It takes away our breath. Like conquerors of a new land, we look at the grey metaphysical surface, which is shimmering trodden sand, reaching right to the end of the horizon. Reflections of the sky, the clouds, the sun on a smooth plain, partly covered with shallow water and intersected by deep riverbeds of rushing rivers.
Right at the end of the horizon there is a silhouette of a pointy island. Far away. And we are so small, just at the start.
The silk momentarily flutters into the sunshine, as a bunch of middle-aged men leaves on a path of prayer and salvation under the guidance of Archangel Michael.
Breton bagpipe accompanied by out-of-tune trumpets lead the brothers courageously into the open. Into the deep. Into knee-deep mud. Coarse male voices as galley slaves sing to Mary: “Je vous salue Marie”.
The tip of the island seems too far, but as we fight through the quicksand also Michael draws nearer. Nearer every hour. He encourages s. As always when we humbly ask for help, it comes. Bare feet, not used to sharp stones, mud and rushing water are stumbling under human and unnecessary burdens we load upon ourselves every morning. After a few kilometres also the shoulders begin to ache. The soul is being cleansed and rinsed into the Atlantic, the ocean of God’s love…
(Tamino Petelinšek, Part of the notes from the Retreat for the French Knights of Columbus to Mont Saint Michel, October 2024)
