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Tomorrow, four men will arrive in Oxford at the end of a 230 miles journey on foot from Ramsgate via Canterbury and the River Thames. The four are Dominican friars, on pilgrimage and charting a path that the first Dominicans took when they arrived in England 800 years ago.

The Dominicans’ walk is typical of traditional pilgrimages. They are walks with a purpose, usually religious, such as following in the footsteps of someone considered holy, or a journey to a holy site and a way of connecting to the past through familiar rituals. The four friars are following a pilgrimage pattern: walking every day, attending church services, praying together along the way, enjoying the kindness of strangers who offer meals and beds for the night.
Yet pilgrimage is also highly adaptable to the modern age. The Dominicans’ trek is being shared online. Some people – me included – have found about the pilgrimage on social media and then accompanied the friars for a day of walking. Not everyone who gets involved is conventionally religious. So what is it about these walks that has made them increasingly popular?

The Dominicans could have just driven to Oxford. But walking – putting one foot in front of another – gives pilgrimage a purpose and a meditative quality that people find so attractive. Then there’s the company you keep. Meeting people on the way - rather like those on the road to Emmaus who encountered Christ after his resurrection – is key to a pilgrimage. You listen to others’ stories. It’s a time when you leave behind your usual life for a journey of discovery, whether about yourself, or others, or God.

In 2021, there’s something else noticeable about pilgrimages. There’s a green thread running through these journeys. The Dominicans told me that one of the main reasons for their pilgrimage was celebrating God’s creation. Others involved in pilgrimages say there’s a renewed appetite for them from people who have been at home so long during lockdown. Like the Dominicans they want to connect with nature.

Next month, that desire will be evident in another pilgrimage. Called Listening to the Land – a pilgrimage for nature, it will involve a diverse group of people from different backgrounds walking 500 miles from London to Glasgow to the COP 26 climate change conference. They want to highlight concern about the planet. Like the Dominicans, the walkers will stop at cathedrals along the way, be hosted by local people, and use social media to chart their course. Above all, like countless other pilgrims through the ages, they say they are walking with reverence, with purpose, a sense of the sacred. And with time for that most precious thing, listening.

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