Armchair Pilgrim: May We Be Blessed With Good Friends

This morning the sun broke through the clouds as our big orange bus emerged from a narrow hawthorn-lined lane into the parking area at Penmon Priory.

Our focus on day three of the pilgrimage was community, and as the pilgrims made their way along the path to St. Seiriol’s holy well, there were signs of newly formed friendships: quiet conversations, pilgrims walking arm in arm, a helping hand up a grassy hill.

Gathering outside the enclosure of the well, we heard the story of  Seiriol and Cybi, who legend says would walk each day from their respective monasteries in Penmon and Holyhead to meet in a field and share their cares and concerns before walking home. We learned about the community of monks that came to learn from Seiriol and the Culdee community of Celtic monks that later lived at the priory. 

We also reflected on the Celtic concept of the anam cara, a soul friend who is there to help you see how the Spirit is moving in your life. We were invited to think about the soul friends in our own lives. 

Before having time on our own to wander and pray in the church and ruins of the old priory, we held a short service celebrating friendships. Pilgrims greeted and blessed one another with  Celtic blessings, ending with a communal blessing  adapted from the words of poet/priest John O’Donohue:

May we be blessed with good friends.  May we learn to be good friends to ourselves.
May we find true community. May we be brought into the real kinship and affinity of belonging.
May we treasure our friends.  May we be good to them and may we be there for them.
In our friends and in our community may we find all the blessings, challenges, truth and light that we need for the journey.  May we never be isolated.
May we always be in the gentle nest of belonging. And may we always be grateful.