If 2025 was a path… The advice of Brother Théophane, pilgrim from St-Jacques-de-Compostelle, to start the year

We are at the dawn of this new year as at the start of an unknown path. How to approach it on a pilgrim?

Living on a pilgrim is for me to consider your existence in a dynamic dimension. It is to be on the move to become more than that which I am called to be, in truth and freedom, under the gaze of God and in relation to my brothers in humanity.

Thus, it would be to go from affirmations: I am a man, I am a Christian, I am a monk … How much can I become more human, more Christian, more brother, more monk, etc.

To cross this year, what should you put in your backpack?

A compass: The Word of God.

A gourd of thirsty water: personal and community prayer.

A stick, as support and support: brothers, friends, brotherhood, church.

A bag: to receive and to give, to live sharing, solidarity, charity in action.

What text could our first steps accompany these new trails?

I am thinking of this invitation addressed to Abram (which will become Abraham) in chapter 12 of Genesis: “Leave your country, your kinship and your father’s house, for the country that I will tell you. I will make you a big people, I will bless you, I will magnify your name; Be a blessing! »In Hebrew, Leikh Leikha, “” leave your country ! “Literally means:” go to you ».

Get in motion to be better or how physical displacement is an invitation to an inner displacement, with what it implies growth and purification of its family, social and relational, and religious representations.

The beginning of the year is the time of resolutions … which very often does not “” do not hold the road »» ! How to be faithful there beyond the first weeks?

Resolutions… what relevant resolutions?
Resolutions to seek to correspond to an idealized image of oneself (so much the better if they do not hold) or resolutions as possible means, within my reach, to seek to become always more, always better, that which I am called to be ?

It is a path, a direction to (re) choose constantly. I can slide, fall, get lost. The important thing, with the grace of God, is to let yourself be raised and advance on the path carrying the most intimate and deep aspirations of my being.

Faced with bad weather, how to protect yourself?

When the weather rumbles and the storm rises around us and in us … Keep contact with God: entrust him with what lives in our hearts with confidence (the Word of God, the prayer of the rosary …) and keep in touch with the Brothers: Living sharing and fraternity – in a double movement: knowing how to listen and daring to confide.

And if we are tempted to indulge in discouragement, that our bag is too heavy to wear, what do you advise?

Knowing how to lighten … knowing how to leave on the way what unnecessarily clutters the bag, the head, the heart. Have confidence and count on Providence. Accept to be vulnerable, need others and dare to ask.

On the way, we can live little, because we are not alone. God watches over and we have companions who over the road become brothers.

The pilgrim sees both very close (the stage of the day) and very far (the goal of the path). How to live this provision throughout the year?

The pilgrim is aware of the destination (where it goes) and it seems to me that the “for which” he set out escapes him, turns out to be different, deeper than visiting …
What struck me on the Camino is that the daily life of a pilgrim on foot, a walker, is very simple. The equipment is reduced to the essentials. On a daily basis, he seeks to meet his most basic needs (accommodation, food, hygiene and health).

However, at the heart of this ordinary basic, he experiences not being alone. He experiences solidarity, sharing and human brotherhood in disconcerting simplicity and authenticity. The ordinary is the setting of the extraordinary where God reveals himself to the one who seeks him, where God reveals himself not at the end of the path, but on the way.

Perhaps a question can accompany us: how can the use of goods become a springboard every day, towards others and to God, and not an obstacle?

If you were at the start of this road to bless us, at the top of Mont-Saint-Michel, what would you tell us?

That Saint Michel sheds light on you with his light; May Saint Michel protect you from his wings; May Saint Michel of his sword reject the assaults of the enemy so that you can walk, towards the kingdom of heaven, being here below, with your brothers and sisters in humanity, witness of faith, hope and charity!

Isn’t the crossing of the Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel not, moreover, an image of this pilgrimage to life?

The Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel has always been perceived as an image of celestial Jerusalem, this city which descends from heaven, between heaven and earth, between heaven and sea, is this place towards where converge and mounts pilgrims to meet God.

The crossing is a source of wonder in front of the beauties of creation. The rhythm and power of its tides, moving sands, the mist that can fall very quickly also say something about the diversity of challenges and dangers that everyone can meet.

The need to be isolated and alone, and to walk in solidarity with others and to have a guide to reaching destination can evoke our lives. In addition, in addition to the spiritual fight, Saint Michael is traditionally the one who weighs souls, guides and escorts the deceased in the beyond.