The Journey: An Approach—From Human Sciences to Theology

Abstract

The symbolic value of the journey has been widely explored in literary theory, educational science, history and philosophy. However, is it possible to approach travel from a theological point of view? The aim of our article is to answer this question. In order to do so, we essentially seek a biblical and theological–spiritual foundation for our research. First, we start from the experience contained in travel books as well as from the notion of the journey as a path to wisdom as it appears in some literary works. After examining the pedagogical value of the notion of the journey as an adventure in which the hero is formed, and the philosophical value of the concept of the journey as a search for the meaning of life, we intend to develop the theological approach on three levels: examining the notion of the journey as a metaphor for the Christian way; the experience of the journey as expatriation; and the relationship between the journey and conversion.

1. Introduction

The symbolic value of travel has been widely explored in literature and literary theory, as well as in the educational sciences, and history and philosophy have not been unaware of this topic. Now, is it also possible to approach journeys from a theological and spiritual point of view? Answering this question is the aim of our present work.

To this end, we essentially intend to offer a biblical and theological–spiritual foundation that can provide a reason for our approach. Biblical, because, in fact, both the command “[g]o from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house” addressed to Abraham (Gen 12:1) and Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem (Mk 10:32; Lk 9:51), or how Saul, on his journey, was “nearing Damascus” (Acts 9:3), provide a sufficient basis to begin our reflection. In addition, the theological–spiritual foundation moves along three complementary paths: Firstly, we see that the journey as a metaphor for the pilgrimage of the Christian has not been foreign neither to the writings of spirituality since Antiquity and the Middle Ages nor to popular devotion around pilgrimages (Santiago, Jerusalem, sanctuaries …). Secondly, also through the lives of saints, we find reflections of various kinds about journeys: the journey as a retreat, the journey as an exile, among others. And lastly, a special case of these, to which we will pay special attention, are intellectual converts. When one approaches the intellectual and vital history of some of the intellectual converts, one discovers in many cases how the realisation of a journey has been one of the elements that has been present in the path that led them to conversion. This can be seen in authors from antiquity, such as, for example, the Fathers of the Church like St Augustine of Hippo, and in contemporary thinkers like the Englishman John Henry Newman and the German Edith Stein.

Regarding the concept of ‘journey’, note that, by ‘journey’, we mean an essentially human action. It is not a ‘movement’ merely in the sense in which physical science describes it, namely, as the length travelled by a mobile from a starting point to an end point. Unlike simple ‘wandering’, characterised by the absence of an end or of a destination—which we humans also perform—what distinguishes the ‘journey’ is a purpose, a goal, a destination. In this sense, ‘journey’ is synonymous with ‘travel’. To what extent ‘tourism’ can be considered in this light is a question that we will address in the following section.

For this reason, we will begin our reflection by approaching the journey from the human sciences perspective (sociology, cultural anthropology, history, literature, pedagogy and philosophy) and then we will explore the journey from a theological perspective. We will use desk, comparative and semantic analysis as a method, from an interdisciplinary point of view.

2. Approach to the Journey from the Human Sciences

2.1. Approach from Sociology and Cultural Anthropology: Tourist Guides and Ethnographic Studies

If MacCannell (1999) considers tourism to be a phenomenon whose origins lie in modernity, in particular, in the middle class that emerged from it, perhaps no one has described tourism as a manifest expression of postmodernity better than Baumann (1997). Indeed, the author highlights how tourists are the heroes of postmodernity. If postmodernity is characterised by a lack of roots and links to the philosophical tradition in which teleology is an essential component, and the avoidance of identity consolidation, the tourist is a perfect example of this, in that what is important for the tourist is to move, not to arrive, unlike pilgrims, who would find stations on their itinerary. In fact, tourists do not establish links with the locals, because they keep their distance from what they visit and the relationship with them is seen as something fortuitous. The meaning of the goal seems to blur its importance, as reflected in the conversation between two girls collected by Cohen (1972, p. 169):

“Where were you last summer?

In Majorca.

Where is that?

I don’t know, I flew there”.

In his sociological analysis, Baumann seems to draw on what Lévi-Strauss (1961, p. 45) described some time ago in his famous ethnographic study of the indigenous tribes of Brazil. There, he noted the inescapable painful paradox associated with the 20th century cultural anthropologist, because it seems that nothing can be seen for the first time anymore, for we see the world through the texts of others:

“The alternative is inescapable: either I am a traveller in ancient times, and faced with a prodigious spectacle which would be almost entirely unintelligible to me and might, indeed, provoke me to mockery or disgust; or I am a traveller of our own day, hastening in search of a vanished reality. In either case I am the loser -and more heavily than one might suppose; for today, as I go groaning among the shadows, I miss, inevitably, the spectacle that is now taking shape. My eyes, or perhaps my degree of humanity, do not equip me to witness that spectacle; and in the centuries to come, when another traveller revisits this same place, he too may groan aloud at the disappearance of much that I should have set down, but cannot. I am the victim of a double infirmity: what I see is an affliction to me; and what I do not see, a reproach”.

Therefore, for the cultural anthropologist, the journey has lost its trait of “discovery” and the task of the ethnographer is seen as an impossible objective description of a new reality that is seen from the perspective of horizons already drawn by others.

It is true that, alongside the analyses that see tourism in solely negative terms, there are sociological studies that consider, from a phenomenology of tourism, looking at it from a very different perspective. Thus, Cohen (1979), faced with the rigid categorisation of tourist experiences, either as expressions of superficiality and an extension of the alienated world in which we live, or as experiences that seek to escape from that world in search of authenticity, proposes a list of tourist experiences according to “the place and significance of tourist experience in the total world-view of tourists, their relationship to a perceived ‘centre’ and the location of that centre in relation to the society in which the tourist lives” (Cohen 1979, p. 179). Hence, drawing from Cohen’s diverse listings (see Cohen 1973, 1974), it is possible to speak of five modes of tourist experiences: “the Recreational Mode, the Diversionary Mode, the Experiential Mode, the Experimental Mode” and “the existential Mode” (Cohen 1979, p. 182).

It is precisely the existential mode of tourism, the experimental and the experiential, both of which share a strong search for a centre of one’s own life, that resembles the journey understood from the perspective of history, through narratives known as “travel books”. We will now take a look at them.

2.2. Approach from History: Travel Books

Perhaps the most intuitive way of accessing humankind’s reflection on journeys is offered to us by history through a literary genre: travel books. For, as Michael Mewshaw reminds us, there is a direct link between the writer and travelling (Mewshaw 2005, p. 3). The stories contained in travel books are characterised by the desire to “ser espectáculo para la contemplación” [be a spectacle for contemplation] (Alburquerque 2006, p. 80), that is, the centre of attention is the description and information on the news and novelties of what is being perceived.

Travel books are distinct from chronicles, where the predominant feature is the account of “los procesos de evolución narrativa se concentran en la andadura de una sola vida” [the facts, events and happenings […] and to this end the descriptive function inherent to the informative character would be subordinated] (Alburquerque 2006, p. 80), or biographies, where “los procesos de evolución narrativa se concentran en la andadura de una sola vida” [the processes of narrative evolution are focused on the journey of a single lifetime] (Alburquerque 2006, p. 80) drive the discourse—so that even if they narrate a journey, in such a narrative, the experience of the biographer dominates over the descriptions of the journey. In travel books, although the author speaks in the first person and conveys what they see, the aim is not to communicate the author’s experience, but to show the exoticism or a singular custom of a country or region, often making use of local terms, songs, proverbs and expressions (Espinosa Sansano 2006, p. 119). The focus of travel book writing has evolved through its history from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries’ more philosophical viewpoint, through the 18th century’s focus on manners and the 19th century and beyond’s concerns about exoticism (Brettel 1986, p. 129). As Brettel reminds us, it was during the 19th century that “tourism became common and, consequently, travel books proliferated” (Brettel 1986, p. 131). Examples of this genre are to be found in works as diverse as Ruy de Clavijo’s Embajada a Tamerlán (1406), or Miguel de Unamuno’s Por tierras de España y Portugal (1911) (Alburquerque 2006, pp. 68–69), in Spanish literature; or Ann Radcliffe’s A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794 (1795) or Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), in English literature, for example.

This delimitation on the scope of this narrative genre is very valuable, because, in fact, there are dictionaries that include chronicles, diaries and novels under this concept (Alburquerque 2006, p. 67). The latter leads us to an interesting reflection, which will be dealt with in the following section, devoted to epics and adventure novels.

2.3. Approach from Literature and Literary Theory: The Journey as a Path to Wisdom

History naturally leads us to literature, for, as Alburquerque points out, “todas las grandes obras de la literatura universal son, de una manera u otra, ‘libros de viajes’” [all the great works of world literature are, in one way or another, “travel books”] (Alburquerque 2006, p. 69). Also, Mewshaw (2005, p. 4) remarks that travel is, somehow, ubiquitous in literature when he suggests that “travel is the basic underpinning or subtext of a lot of literature”. Precisely, clarifying the symbolic content of the story of the journey present in the great narratives has been one of the most significant contributions of literary theory (Campbell 2008).

Thus, the tradition of the journey as a path to wisdom has been a recurring theme in classical literature (Carrizo Rueda 2008, p. 43). The Odyssey and Don Quixote are exemplary testimonies of the latter (Villar Lecumberri 2014). In addition to the spectacular voyage of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who deserved an immortal place in the language by leaving us the legacy of the term ‘odyssey’, understood as a journey, Homer’s great work includes other significant journeys, such as Telemachus’ own journey:

“Telemachus,

You’ll lack neither courage nor sense from this day on,

Not if your father’s spirit courses through your veins—

Now there was a man, I’d say, in words and action both!

So how can your journey end in shipwreck or defeat?

Only if you were not his stock, Penelope’s too,

Then I’d fear your hopes might come to grief.

Few sons are the equals of their fathers;

Most fall short, all too few surpass them.

But you, brave and adept from this day on—

Odysseus’ cunning has hardly given out in you—

There’s every hope that you will reach your goal.

Put them out of your mind, these suitors’ schemes and plots.

They’re madmen. Not a shred of sense or decency in the crowd”.

(Homer 2006, p. 102)

With these words, the author puts into Athena’s mouth the answer to the prayer of Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, who had been scorned by the suitors of Penelope, his mother. Thinking little of him, they thought that he would not undertake any journey to find his father. However, Athena comforts him with the idea of undertaking the journey by reminding him of his roots: the family he comes from. At the same time, she brings him face to face with the decision to take the risk of freedom over what people will say.

In the Libro de Apolonio (mid-13th century), a long poem recording the wanderings of King Apollonius of Tyre, a fisherman reminds King Apollonius during a crisis on a journey, when he is tempted to return home, of how “las aventuras favorables y desfavorables son el medio para que los hombres alcancen la verdadera sabiduría” [favourable and unfavourable adventures are the means for men to attain true wisdom] (Carrizo Rueda 2008, p. 43). In this way, he corrects the king’s view who thought he was performing poorly as a king because he had not travelled much. Travelling will help to shape his personality, but not in the sense of giving him more knowledge, as he thought, but rather experience of life and the world (Carrizo Rueda 2008, p. 43).

Centuries later, the genius of Cervantes presents, together with the idealistic vision of the journey expressed by the eponymous character of his novel, Don Quixote, “[y]ou can see, brother Sancho, what a long journey lies ahead of us, and you must realise that God alone knows when we shall come back or how much leisure or time off this business is going to allow us” (Cervantes Saavedra 2003, p. 757), a critique of the absurdity of journeys as presented in chivalric romances (Cervantes Saavedra 2003, p. 433). In any case, the madness of the so-called “ingenious hidalgo” is interspersed with a prudence which is not put into practice by the protagonist himself, who gives advice he did not apply to himself: “When a prudent man sets out on a long journey, he first looks for someone trustworthy and agreeable to keep him company” (Cervantes Saavedra 2003, p. 611). The fact that at the end of the journey, he comes to his senses at home, however, shows the transformation of this atypical character.

In any case, from literature, we can see how the symbolic knowledge it transmits points to the truth. As Segura points out, “la huella de la verdad que late en el mito pone de manifiesto que el espíritu anhela aquello que los sentidos y la materia no son capaces de otorgar” [the trace of truth that beats in the myth shows that the spirit longs for that which the senses and matter are unable to provide] (Segura Fernández 2008, p. 47).

2.4. Pedagogical Approach: The Journey as an Adventure in Which the Hero Is Forged to the Life Itinerary in Which the Person Is Formed

What has been said in the previous section has some pedagogical implications. Hence, contributions have also been made from the educational sciences to highlight the pedagogical and didactic value of great travel stories, understood as adventures that give birth to the hero (Leeming 1998, pp. 39–40), weaving interdisciplinary relations between literature, anthropology and pedagogy. Thus, E. Navarro Remis, in the context of the affective and sexual education project “Aprendamos a amar” [Let’s Learn to Love], seeks “introducir la educación en virtudes como medio para aprender a amar y a la luz de los protagonistas de los grandes relatos de forjas heroicas” [to introduce education in virtues as a means of learning to love and in the light of the protagonists of the great stories of heroic forging] (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 159).

Based on the so-called philosophical concept of the “narratividad de la vida humana” [narrative of human life] (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 161), and following the stages of the itinerary of the literary and cinematographic hero’s genesis outlined by A. Sánchez-Escalonilla (2019, pp. 141 ff.), Navarro establishes an analogy between human life and epic stories in which a hero has to carry out a great deed. This analogy finds its basis in the Greek etymology of the term persona, but, above all, in the fact that Aristotle, in his Poetics, established the origin of literature in realism, insofar as every story imitates reality (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 161). Even if Navarro does not mention Ricoeur, who is usually considered the pioneer in introducing the expression of narrative identity in philosophy, precisely by alluding to Aristotle, he arrives at the ultimate sources of the concept of narrativity (see Aristotle 1984; Ricoeur 1984). In Navarro’s anthropological extrapolation of literary theory—the distinction between creator and maker is of particular interest—shows how people can only be makers of their own lives, but not creators, as we shape something that already exists, but we do not make it appear out of nowhere (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 163).

Navarro defines the concept of arquitrama, the arch-plot, as the “trama maestra o trama de tramas que le sirve de armazón. Esta trama es tan antigua como el propio hombre y el arte de contar historias” [master plot or plot of plots that serves as its framework. This plot is as ancient as humankind itself and the art of storytelling] (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 161). He identifies the arch-plot of life with the hero’s journey, since in Ancient Greece, the heroes in Homeric literature played an important pedagogical and socialising role in that they served as role models. For him, in today’s postmodern context and with regard to educational work, the heroes who, because of their origin, were not born as heroes, but became heroes, are of importance, like Frodo Baggins in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955) (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 166). In this way, it becomes easier to identify real heroes, be they famous (sportsmen, scientists or artists, among others), or not (parents or friends, among others). In any case, it is a characteristic of the hero to “proteger y servir” [protect and serve] (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 166), as “el héroe es el que ama y de este modo configura su identidad” [the hero is the one who loves and thus shapes his identity] (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 167). For this, family and friendship circles are essential schools in which to learn about love, and the hero’s weapons are none other than the fundamental (prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude) (Navarro Remis 2021, pp. 177–79; Sánchez-Escalonilla 2019, p. 46) and theological (faith, hope and charity) virtues (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 178).

The stages of the hero’s journey are similar to those of the personal journey (See Campbell 2008). Thus, in the first stage, that of the ordinary world, if the hero is presented in society, and appears to be just one more in the crowd, with an inner desire to make his life a great adventure, in the same way, in the personal journey one sees how everyone has the desire for infinite fulfilment, even though we are finite beings. In this first stage, there is a call to adventure and a moment in which a wise old man appears as a real-life example of an adult who guides the child in their decision-making. The second stage is what Navarro calls the “entry into the special world” (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 169), which represents the risk that freedom entails. Here, the wise old man instructs the novice, who receives the first wounds of battle, the first scars, which are like our failures, and help us to be more understanding and humble, having been confronted with the experience of trying to reach one’s own limits. Also, part of this act, in Navarro’s description, is the “visit to the Oracle” (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 171), which means the need to know ourselves, often not immediately, but through moments of pausing along the way to find out if it is necessary to redirect the course of one’s own existence, to find one’s own vocation. The act ends with the so-called “descent into hell” (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 172) (prolonged crises due to illness, pain or several other causes) and the “disappearance of the wise old man” (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 173) (either because of the death of the guides, or because the child, in adulthood, has to separate from his parents on his path to personal maturity). The third and final act is the emergence from hell, the otherworld or the netherworld, leading to the supreme test and the return home (Navarro Remis 2021, pp. 174–76; Leeming 1998, pp. 239–40).

Faced with the crisis that characterises the postmodern individual, who does not know how to understand their life from the grand narratives, falling into a fragmented existence without unity of meaning (Navarro Remis 2021, p. 165), this contribution of pedagogy that connects literature and anthropology is highly significant in helping the individual of today to reflect on the meaning of life and to enter themselves.

2.5. Philosophical Approach: The Journey as a Search for the Meaning of Life

The pedagogical application of the anthropological value of classical stories has undoubtedly led us to the gates of philosophy. In such an application, the presentation of human existence as a way of life has become evident (see Gasquet 2006, p. 32; Ricoeur 1975) and, in particular, along with the work of the contemporary author Alasdair MacIntyre. In what way? We shall see below.

In his programme to rescue the concept of virtue, in the face of the inadequacies of the moral language of our times, characterised by the use of terms that refer to concepts that are empty or devoid of their ultimate meaning, the Scottish intellectual stresses the need to recover the teleological and historical vision of man proper to the classical tradition. For him, modernity is witnessing the great incoherence of wanting to rationally justify morality by disconnecting it from its inherited Christian history, but with concepts that imply it (MacIntyre 2011, p. 61 ff.). This breaks with the intrinsic relationship established by the Aristotelian tradition between human nature and morality, based on the identification between good and happiness (eudamonia), which is achieved through virtue. However, while it is necessary to look again at Aristotle, and to return to the relationship that he establishes between virtue and the end (telos) of humankind, MacIntyre (2011, pp. 205–6) is well aware of the absence of the character of historicity in Aristotelian anthropology. On the other hand, he points out as a weakness of Stagirite’s philosophy that happiness is conceived in very fragile terms, for it can vanish because of bad fortune, a setback of fate. In other words, in the interpretation of the professor of Notre-Dame, Aristotle excludes conflict as a part of life. Hence, it is important for MacIntyre to recover the historical vision of the man of the Middle Ages: to look again at the man in via, the man in a state of pilgrimage, on a journey. In this vision, in which Aristotelian philosophy is renewed with Christian thought, completely new aspects appear that were not contemplated by Plato’s disciple. Thus, there appears a happiness in which suffering is not something spurious. It even admits the possibility of a final redemption of an almost incorrigible life, as in the case of the good thief. Moreover, it is possible to find forgiveness and charity, understood as love for one’s enemy, as virtues.

Therefore, in line with the medieval tradition, the meaning of virtue should be recovered by taking into account the narrative order of human existence; that is, the unity of life that obeys a telos of its nature, but also its character of historicity. In order to do this, it is inexcusable to revisit two questions: what is good for me, and what is good for man? The first has to do with how one can best live one’s unit of life. The second has to do with what all the answers to the first question must have in common. According to MacIntyre (2011, p. 253),

it is the systematic asking of these two questions and the attempt to answer them in deed as well as in word which provide the moral life with its unity. The unity of a human life is the unity of a narrative quest.

Thus, two key features of the medieval concept of the quest should be highlighted: firstly, that without a final telos, without a goal, there is no beginning to the quest; and secondly, that it is necessary to overcome risks, temptations and dangers in order to understand the goal of the quest. It should not be forgotten that “[a] quest is always an education both as to the character of that which is sought and in self-knowledge” (MacIntyre 2011, p. 54).

This brings us to the gates of theology. In a certain way, theology was already appearing in the pedagogical approach, both in the underlying philosophical approach implicit therein, and in the connections seen with specifically theological themes (theological virtues and the inclusion of the Cross—failures—within history itself, as part of the meaning of life and not as an end to it).

3. Theological Approach

3.1. The Journey as a Metaphor for the Christian Way

As mentioned above, there is clearly a Christian ‘journey literature’ that explores the journey in Christian literature as allegory, exemplified masterfully by Dante Alighieri (1996) in his popular The Divine Comedy (1321), by John Bunyan (1993) in The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678 and 1684), and more recently by C. S. Lewis (2001) in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956) and by Tolkien (2010, 2012) in The Hobbit (1937) and in The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955). There is a common ground between the literary approach and the experience of Christian faith. However, in this section we would like to approach a reflection in which this experience of faith is not only a source of inspiration for a fictional story, but a real experience that is objectively explained through the notion of the journey as a metaphor.

Aristotle’s perception of failure as something contrary to the purpose of human life is not surprising. It is a consequence of the Greek worldview, for, as Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga (1998, p. 93) says, “los antiguos jamás supieron el porqué del sufrimiento” [people from ancient times never knew the reason for suffering]. However, while Aristotle presents a static vision of human existence, a consequence of his anthropological hylemorphism, his fellow countryman, Homer, already expressed the key to human existence in terms of the journey, even if he could not give an account of suffering. However, it will be the people of Israel who will emphasise the historical dimension of the human being with all its vigour, precisely because “su existencia misma nace y se desarrolla en el seno de un viaje” [their very existence is born and develops in the midst of a journey] (Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga 1998, p. 94) and, above all, because the God of Israel is the Creator, and as He is the Creator, He is not only the owner of Creation, but also of time, of history. Abraham’s journey is precisely the antithesis of Odysseus’ journey. While Odysseus is an expatriate and his life consists of finding his way back to his homeland, the opposite is true for Abraham. He is in his homeland, but following the call of God, “la vida comienza a ser entendida como respuesta a una Presencia que aparece como significado del camino que se realiza, que ya no es un mero devenir errante” [life begins to be understood as a response to a Presence that appears as the meaning of the path that is taken, that is no longer a mere wandering] (Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga 1998, p. 96), as was the case with Odysseus. As Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga points out, in The Odyssey, the journey does not end, because when Odysseus arrives in his homeland, he has to go through countless cities ignored by him, while Abraham sets out on the journey starting from an alliance that implies the certainty of a final goal that is progressively discovered in the story. Thus, the novelty that appears with Abraham is “la posibilidad de afrontar el futuro desde la confianza en la promesa que ha recibido. Abraham introduce la novedad de la fe” [the possibility of facing the future with confidence in the promise he has received. Abraham introduces the novelty of faith] (Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga 1998, p. 97). According to the author, with both Abraham and Moses, what moves and pushes humankind to move is God himself, who keeps company with his people.

Such companionship reaches its climax in Christianity. God, by becoming incarnate and becoming the Way and the friend of humankind, makes it possible for the journey of life to be accomplished in a completely new way. Time is no longer synonymous with fragility and tragedy, but the opportunity for the infinite desires for fulfilment found in man’s heart to be filled with God’s grace. As Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga says, “ya no se trata de buscar una patria; nuestra patria se nos ha entregado en el presente y el futuro se adivina como una verificación y profundización en la experiencia del Dios encarnado” [it is no longer a question of searching for a homeland; our homeland has been given to us in the present and the future is seen as a verification and deepening of the experience of the incarnate God] (Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga 1998, p. 102). He stresses that the pilgrimages appearing in the Middle Ages have their origins in this idea: “se viaja para reconocer lo más verdadero de la realidad presente, no para huir de ella” [one travels to recognise what is most true in the present reality, not to flee from it] (Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga 1998, p. 102). In short, the concept of the person as homo viator, coined by Marcel (1951) and recalled by the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples (2001), is born out of the consideration of “la vida como viaje, como movimiento hacia un destino que, con la aportación cristiana, pasará a configurar la mentalidad occidental” [life as a journey, as a movement towards a destiny which, with a Christian contribution, will come to shape the Western mentality] (Guajardo-Fajardo Colunga 1998, p. 99).

Yet, it should not be forgotten that the novelty of the incarnate God implies the integration of failure in the meaning of life. In fact, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem (Lk 9:51), which is synonymous with going towards the Cross. In beautiful words, M. Zerwick explains that “únicamente Cristo y el Padre celestial conocen lo que estas palabras encierran. […] Es como si Jesús tomara en sus propias manos el destino de su vida para enfrentarse decidido a todo lo que el Padre le tiene preparado en Jerusalén” [Only Christ and the heavenly Father know what these words contain. […] It is as if Jesus took the destiny of his life into his own hands to face with determination all that the Father has in store for him in Jerusalem] (Zerwick 1957, p. 77). Indeed, the Cross is inseparably linked to the Resurrection, for the exinanivit leads to the exaltavit.

Numerous works of spirituality have expressed this sense of Christian life as an interior journey, in which the Cross and the Resurrection are intimately united. It should suffice to recall, for example, The Journey of the Mind to God, by Saint Bonaventure (1993); The Ascent of Mount Carmel, by Saint John of the Cross (2017, pp. 101–352) or The Way of Perfection, by Saint Teresa of Ávila (2014). Along the same lines is the contribution of D. Willet (2010), outlining the stages of the journey of spiritual maturity—childhood, adulthood and parenthood—based on the Johannine corpus. Recently, Pope Francis, in his Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, recalled how Christian life is a journey that needs extraordinary times to strengthen hope in the face of the difficulties that we experience along the way (Francisco 2024).

3.2. Travel and Displacement: When to Travel Is to Emigrate or Suffer Exile

One of the difficulties mentioned by the Pope is the situation of many people who have to emigrate, leaving their own land in search of a better future for their loved ones or because of persecution. When the journey involves emigration, one’s own existence becomes detached from what one considers one’s own, from one’s home and family. If Abraham and Moses knew this displacement well, for Jesus and the Holy Family it was no stranger. Not only did Joseph and Mary have to flee to Egypt shortly after the birth of Jesus (Mt 2: 13–16), but also it is worth noting the difficulties of Mary’s journey to Ein Karim, to the home of her relative Elizabeth (see Vicent Cernuda 2007). So, the Christ Child spent part of his early childhood in Egypt. The kenosis of the Incarnation brought with it these consequences.

There are also striking testimonies among the Fathers of the Church. A saint who was banished five times during his lifetime was St. Athanasius (Forbes 1998, p. 50). From his brilliant intervention at the Council of Nicaea (325), he was one of the staunch defenders of orthodoxy against the Arian hegemony that cast its shadow over the episcopal hierarchy and the court of the Empire. Emperor Julian gave as the reason for his fourth banishment, in 362, the fact that the bishop of Alexandria was a “disturber of the peace and enemy of the gods” (Quasten 1960, p. 21). Knowing how to bring good out of evil, God would have St. Athanasius draw not only spiritual benefit from exile, through the union of his soul with Him, but also influence over time through his contact with the West (Quasten 1960, p. 21). It is significant that, when, in his last exile, he believed that the moment of martyrdom had come and he said,

I have no fear […] for many long years I have suffered persecution, and never has it disturbed the peace of my soul. It is a joy to suffer, and the greatest of all joys is to give one’s life for Christ.

(Forbes 1998, p. 84)

Another of the Holy Fathers who suffered banishment was St. John Chrysostom. After his brief exile in 403 in Praenetum, Bithynia, and his return to Constantinople by imperial order, in 404, he was again banished by Emperor Arcadius, instigated by his wife Eudoxia (González Blanco 2006, p. 171). The reason for this is unknown, but it was probably Chrysostom’s criticism of the pagan festivities held on the occasion of the unveiling of a statue of the empress that angered Eudoxia. For three years and three months until his death he travelled from Constantinople to Comana Pontica, in Pontus, passing through Cucusus, Arabisso and Pytyonte, suffering the threats of the Isaurians, of the monks who opposed him, and enduring the rigours of an Armenian winter that was colder than usual, adding to it illness and loneliness (González Blanco 2006, p. 174). The calamities described by the saint in one of his letters and how he was able to endure them during this period are striking:

And neither the inclemency of the weather, nor the desolation of the region, nor the scarcity of goods, nor the dearth of attendants, nor the unskillfulness of the doctors, nor the absence of baths, nor being confined all day long to one room as in prison, nor being continually unable to move even when I have need to do so, nor constantly abiding in the smoke and near the fire, nor the fear of robbers nor their ceaseless raids, nor any other similar thing has prevailed over us. Indeed, we are getting along in better health than previously, when we were receiving much care for our health.

(Saint John Chrysostom 2016, p. 167)

3.3. Journey and Conversion: Desired or Unexpected

Often, the journey, in the literal, not the metaphorical sense, has been or is associated with conversion. This is either because, in a penitential sense, one undertakes a pilgrimage (Herbers 2014, p. 43; Alfonso X 1807, p. 498), or because the opening of horizons that comes with the knowledge of a reality different from the usual is the instrument that grace uses to touch the soul and turn it towards Him.

With regard to pilgrimages, Alfonso X explains the three types of pilgrimage in his work Siete partidas (1256–1265): the pilgrimage out of free will, because of a vow or for penance. In all three cases, however, it seems to us that conversion is implicit, whether due to external or internal motives. The testimony of Egeria, the pilgrim who went to the Holy Land from Hispania, is famous for its antiquity. Although the true identity of the agent who made the journey to the Holy Places according to the surviving diary, dating back to the 6th century, is disputed (Herrero Llorente 1963, pp. 9, 14), the fact is that the author of this book inspired A. Muncharaz to recreate this pilgrimage in the form of a novel (Muncharaz Rossi 2012). In any case, it is about someone who, having faith, goes to a place related to the events of the Revelation to nourish their faith.

However, the second option has sometimes been less explored, namely, that of someone who, on a journey without explicitly religious intention, experiences the beginning of a conversion. The case of Saul, who, on his way to Damascus, with the clear intention of persecuting the Christians and captivating them, is chosen by the Lord to become an apostle, is notorious (Acts 9: 3–9). In a less direct way, we find the case of Clement of Alexandria. According to Quasten (1950, p. 5), certainly, the reasons for his conversion are not known to be pagan. However, it is known that “[a]fter he became a Christian he made extensive travels to Southern Italy, Syria and Palestine. His purpose was to seek instruction from the most famous Christian teachers” (Quasten 1950, p. 5). From this, we may infer that, perhaps, some journey also had something to do with his conversion.

In the case of Augustine of Hippo, the journey in his search for truth, from paganism to Manichaeism to the Catholic Church, led him to Milan, where he met St. Ambrose, whose preaching undoubtedly influenced his conversion (Saint Augustine of Hippo 2009, p. 61 ff.). More contemporary to us is the case of J. H. Newman, who, on his voyage to the Mediterranean in 1833 (Ker 2010, p. 54 ff.), suffered from an illness that for him meant

una profunda experiencia religiosa en la que convergen factores de dos tipos, unos externos y otros internos. Los externos son las tensiones de un largo viaje, potenciadas por la aguda inquietud que provocaban en su ánimo los cambios constitucionales en Inglaterra y el espectáculo de una Europa en proceso revolucionario […]. Los internos equivalen plenamente a una experiencia de conversión en la que Newman reconoce la mano de Dios, que le está castigando por un doble pecado de obstinación: por enfrentarse a su Provost en el Oriel college y por empeñarse en viajar solo a Sicilia” [a profound religious experience in which two types of factors converge, some external and some internal. The external are the tensions of a long journey, heightened by the acute disquiet which the constitutional changes in England and the spectacle of a Europe in a revolutionary process provoked in his mind […]. The internal ones are fully equivalent to an experience of conversion in which Newman recognises the hand of God, who is punishing him for a double sin of obstinacy: for confronting his Provost at Oriel College and for insisting on travelling alone to Sicily].

(García Ruíz 2018, p. 10)

In fact, at the end of his illness, he says “I sat down on my bed, and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer him, ‘I have work to do in England’” (Newman 1875, p. 35).

Years later, at the beginning of the 20th century, Edith Stein also travelled to Göttingen from Breslau to study phenomenology with E. Husserl (Stein 2002). When, at the end of her doctoral thesis, she had to follow Husserl to Freiburg, she saw a lady with her shopping who went into a temple to pray and came out again. This form of prayer, different from the Jewish way of praying in the synagogue, was an invitation to reconsider life in the light of faith. At the end of her days, on her way to Auschwitz, she will write on a ticket “unterwegs ad orientem” (Suzawa 2015), that is, on the way to the East, which, in addition to naming a physical place, names a spiritual place where illumination comes from: the Sun that rises from above. As Cirlot (2020, p. 406) reminds us, “to become illuminated is to become aware of a source of light, and, in consequence, of spiritual strength”.

4. Conclusions

If it can be said that one of the missions of Fundamental Theology is to explore those border regions where the profane and the sacred touch, a phenomenological study that seeks to highlight the constitutive and essential features of the journey drawn from our Biblical and theological–spiritual enquiry can be a new way to obtain reflections that enlighten our times. Although the journey as a theme has been the subject of research in literary theory, education, history and philosophy, we wanted to take into account research in these fields in order to situate the theological novelty of the approach. Given the current interest in travelling and journeys, we sense the theological–pastoral and social value of this study.