Inspired by a couple I met on my first pilgrimage (recorded in A Pilgrimage Around Wales, Y Lolfa, 2018) and the ‘gentle but firm challenge’ of another acquaintance during my walk asking “How will you stop this time becoming just a distant memory?”, I set about planning a second pilgrimage to preserve the memory of my previous walk around Wales and to build upon my knowledge of Celtic cultures shared by Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.
A Celtic Pilgrimage (Y Lolfa, 2020) is a record of the reflections, experiences and insights from that journey which took me from my home in south Wales to Brittany and back again. Setting out on foot and being away for four months, I visited some of the most holy sites in the west of England and Brittany, ranging from the Moravian Church at Brockweir in Gloucestershire to Wesley Cottage in Cornwall and the ancient cathedrals at St Pol-de-Léon and Tréguier in northern France. In A Celtic Pilgrimage I give some of the history of the these very varied places of pilgrimage and also reflect on the spiritual experience of being a modern-day pilgrim.
In the Foreword to A Celtic Pilgrimage written by the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, Bishop of Truro, he concludes with the following;
Pilgrimage and prayer are surely ideas whose time have come again. Today we need to learn afresh that our hyper-connected, hyper-tech world has not arrived at all: it is heading in a dangerous direction, but there is nonetheless a better path to choose. Today we need to learn afresh that we are not self-sufficient, and do not have all the answers, but need to depend again on the God who loves us.
May this little book help us all choose that better, more trusting, more hopeful path.
A Celtic Pilgrimage– a walk from Wales to Brittany is available to buy from Y Lolfa