March 2020

In an essay in Commonweal Magazine [October 5, 2018], Nancy Fitzgerald writes of being part of a pilgrimage to the holy well of the sixth-century monk Saint Colman, across the rugged Burren mountains in the west of Ireland.

Before beginning their trek to the site, their guide instructed the half-dozen pilgrims to “choose a stone with sharp edges” to take with them on the climb. As they trudged across the slabs of limestone and shale, the guide said, “Slide your hand in your pocket; finger your jagged stone while you think of the jagged stone in your life. Consider the thing that irritates you, confounds you, frustrates you, holds you back. And while you’re doing that, as you walk across the Burren, pay attention to everything. Watch and listen.”

As she walked, the stone Nancy thumbed in her pocket became “my daughter-in-law, once beloved, now caught up in a swirling maelstrom of a marriage that ended but still seems to linger on. It was the years of misunderstandings, and the tears shed for Katy, the little girl the marriage produced. It was fear and dread over what would become of the child, and frustration over my inability to do something about it. It was long nights of anxiety. It was sorrow for my first-born son; my heart was aching for his broken heart.”

Nancy and her fellow pilgrims, all carrying their own stones, trudged on. They finally came to the well of Saint Colman and the cave where the monk lived and the stone altar where the saint prayed and offered Mass. At the gurgling pool of cold, clear water, the guide said, “Take your stone. Take your worries and your fears and your anxieties and cast them into the well.” And Nancy and her traveling companions plopped their stones in the pool and blessed themselves with the water. She remembers:

“Long before Patrick ever set foot in Ireland, the pagan Celts believed their island was a thin place, a holy place, where the veil between heaven and earth, time and eternity, disappears. It seemed to disappear that gray morning, as we headed back, silent and unburdened. My pocket was empty. The stone was gone, and my worries disappeared, too, at least for a while. I prayed prayers of gratitude. I prayed for my ex-daughter-in-law, and for my son, and for their child. I prayed for healing. I think we all prayed for healing — washed in the waters of Colman mac Duagh’s holy well.”

At a well in Ireland, an American pilgrim faces her sadness and anxiety over her broken family and finds the grace to move on in peace. At another well in another place two thousand years before, a Samaritan woman (from our gospel on the Third Sunday of Lent) finds the grace to pull her own life together. Christ is present to both women: Christ accompanies Nancy Fitzgerald in the prayer she offers while trekking up the rocky, barren Burren; Christ is the stranger who gently nudges the Samaritan woman to see her life with new hope and peace. The grace to start over is ours if we’re humble enough to confront our limitations and culpability and wise enough to realize God’s constant presence and invitation to return to him.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and I hope you are having a good Lent!