A Pilgrimage to Eternity by Timothy Egan

Author:Timothy Egan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

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OUR NEXT TARGET is the cliff. High overhead in the near distance at the edge of town is a chapel and hermitage, dating to the seventh century, carved into what looks like a sheer vertical wall at the base of the big mountains. The trailhead has a warning sign for those who fear heights. We start our way up the narrow path, 478 steps of stone, with a handrail on one side to cling to. The valley floor recedes. The mountains open up. Cars, houses, and the station below look like the set of a toy-train town. The last stretch is a strain, but worth every muscle ache. We level out at the most breathtaking spiritual lair on the Via Francigena—the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rock. It is carved into and mortared onto the mountain, defying time and gravity. It looks organic, an artful accident of geology, stones stacked against a much bigger stone anchoring the Alps, topped by a small bell tower. How did any of these pieces get up here? Casey is hesitant about going inside, assuming correctly that we’ll find the usual reliquary holding body parts of some forgotten saint. But the small space in this nest of God is very moving, and he crosses the threshold to light a votive candle for his grandmother. The air is cool, a welcoming chill, like being in a well-furnished cave. Back outside, the view is one that belongs to raptors riding afternoon air currents.

Close to the chapel is a hermit’s quarters, first used by a man named Amé, born in the year 560. He clambered up this rock and settled into a flat on the cliff “to pray, mourn his faults in this narrow place, and serve his redeemer with perfect submission,” as a plaque at the base of his small statue explains. Saint Amé lived in sheepskin and walked barefoot. Friends from the valley brought him barley bread, water, and nuts. After he died in 627, he left something behind: those relics inside the chapel are his remains. People can still apply for solo residency on the rock. The last person to live here was a lapsed lawyer and ex-politician, Nicolas Buttet. He left just a few years ago, shucking his prior life to take priestly vows. “Once I spent nine days with only a jar of honey to eat,” he wrote. And in a very curious twist, that former hermit on the ledge is now spiritual adviser to the archbishop of Canterbury, the ever-surprising Justin Welby.

We take our time walking down the 478 steps. We hate to give up the view. Back at the monastery, we rest in the long shadows of the cloister, framed by Roman arches dripping wisteria vines, a fountain in the middle. Next door, the latest iteration of the permanent prayer is under way in the basilica. It’s a song in Latin. The plain and powerful voices are those of Augustinian monks, with a handful of young men among the older brothers—the Sleepless Ones doing their aural duty.

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