Rite and Reason: Brendan Ó Cathaoir joined a group of pilgrims who recently carried a cross some 100 miles along the Scottish Highlands to Iona
Iona is a golden link between Ireland and Britain. In 563 Columcille, one of the patron saints of Ireland along with Patrick and Brigid, founded a monastery on this island of Hebridean beauty. For the next two centuries it was to be the most famous centre of learning in the Celtic world. The hypothesis that the Book of Kells was written and decorated there, in the mid-eighth century, is supported by similarities with the art of the Iona crosses. Scottish Cross (www.scottishcross.org.uk), an ecumenical society, organises a pilgrimage each Holy Week. This year there were two groups: one walking from Fort William, the other from Loch Lomond.
Before taking the Fort William route, this pilgrim spent his first night in a Glasgow bus station courtesy of Ryanair, which, by refusing to accept the internationally-recognised NUJ press card as identification, had delayed my departure from Dublin. The subsequent accommodation was less austere: youth hostels and the floors of community halls.
The cross-carrying pilgrims were no masochists who make others uncomfortable. They formed a basic Christian community: unselfconsciously committed: caring and sharing. The week, though arduous, was characterised by laughs and hugs. One of their most attractive qualities was the way in which they rejoiced in each other's gifts.
And they were a talented group, particularly the university students. They included: 10 young women, a Catholic priest, the director of Cafod , and a Liberal Democrat candidate in the European elections. While Scottish Cross taps into a generous vein in British Christianity, nearly half the pilgrims were of Irish descent.
Some days were spent struggling in rain and snow showers. On other days the sun shone as we walked through valleys surrounded by snow-capped mountains in scenery reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. Mountain streams framed the stillness. We shared the slopes with herds of deer and Highland cattle - resplendent with antlers and horns - and flocks. Occasionally, we encountered bemused climbers.
Pilgrimage involves walking the earth for deeper reasons than simply to travel from one place to another. True pilgrimage is undertaken in a spirit of humility. Meister Eckhart said: "Nothing we may do can ever be so appropriate as trusting fully in God."
Christians venerate the cross as God's monument to his unshakeable love. They recognise that the focus of redemption today is the bloody body of Christ we call our beautiful, broken world. The Passion of the Christ by Mel Columcille Gibson - his full name - naturally evoked comment. Although the film portrays a heroic figure, its emphasis is in the wrong place. Shocking brutality can never save us. Only love redeems.
As Fr Michael Morwood writes in his book, Tomorrow's Catholic, the passion of Christ was not a burden God asked him to bear to "make up" for our sins. It was not a price to be paid so that God would relent and allow us back into his friendship. It is rather the reality of where human existence led this man. And, like us, in the harsh realities of life his faith was tested to the limits.
If we really listened to the message of Jesus, we would jettison a world view that imagines God as a cruel manipulator of the human condition. We would discern that he does not want to be feared, but to be recognised in the sufferings of the poor and the weak; that he is irrevocably committed to the liberation of humankind; and that - though not always apparent - humanity is charged with the spirit of God. Compassion, John O'Donohue observes in Divine Beauty, "continues to shelter and save our world".
Jesus came to share a gloriously joyous world view with us. He understood his mission in terms of leading people from fear to trust. His life and death were not about changing God's mind; rather, he was concerned with changing our hearts, and our perception of God.
False images of God feed fundamentalism. Ultimately, Christ was a visible expression of God. He gave us only one commandment - to love the way he loved - believing we would thus discover the sacred in our midst.
"The darkness crepitates with the splintering of a myriad lances against the masonry of asceticism," Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote. Easter spent with the Iona Community was a resurrection experience.
The Rev George MacLeod, who founded the ecumenical community of women and men in 1938, described Iona as a "thin place" - only a tissue paper separating the material from the spiritual. The community prays in the restored Iona Abbey - originally a medieval Benedictine foundation - and promotes justice, peace and the integrity of creation.
Brendan Ó Cathaoir is a journalist at The Irish Times