Prayer Travel, enable Izaak's Pilgrimage Via Francigena

My name is Izaak Lenn,

I'm coming here because I feel compelled by The Lord to take a pilgrimage.

This conviction came to me suddenly one day in a humdrum day at work. I would follow the Via Francigena to Rome, a trip made on foot, dedicated to prayer and reflection. For those of you interested, the full Via Francigena is an ancient path, running from Canterbury, across the English Channel, through France and Switzerland, ending eventually in Rome, sometimes continuing on to Sicily. The first mention we have about it dates back to a manuscript to the ninth century. This path has been taken by countless pilgrims over the centuries, some great and famous, and many more humble people of faith like myself, anonymous to history. I plan to follow a slightly shorter section, starting from Switzerland down through to Rome.

If you've ever heard of el Camino de Santiago in Spain, the spiritual concept is exactly the same. This is a much more obscure path than the famous el Camino. While folks who have taken that pilgrimage describe a road full of fellow pilgrims, friends and strangers, and bustling hostels waiting every night, it's possible I may go days without seeing another person on the path. I anticipate this to be in many ways a time of solitude, just The Lord and myself.

I became convinced that taking this trip was the right thing to do very slowly, much more slowly than I'm proud of. I was ready to dismiss the idea as a daydream of my own, but it simply wouldn't leave me. Rather than fading the more I ignored it, it grew ravenous from lack of attention. After weeks of considering, praying, giving conditional thought, I finally surrendered with the simplest and only reply appropriate, "I will go"

"I might go" wouldn't do

"I'll go if..." never sedated the pressure

Only when I said "I will go; come hell or high water, I will go where you instruct me", did I feel a peace finally arrive.

I don't want to give the impression that The Spirit only came to me as a savage nag, in many ways it was much more of an insistent grace that convinced me.

I began to look up equipment? Somebody gifts me a pair of hiking boots.

I would ask for prayer? The person I was with would mention a specific aspect I hadn't told them about.

While not unheard of, a pilgrimage is not an ordinary part of my mother faith. I remember first learning about the practice of pilgrimage studying the faith of medieval believers. I became fixated on a character called "The Pilgrim", a poor wanderer whose life work was to travel from holy place to holy place, seeking the presence of The Lord. He had nothing but the clothes on his back, but his hair was woven with trinkets from every place he visited to pray over the years. The great work of his life was to pray, to pray as far and as wide and as well as he could. I remember being astounded by the central role of prayer in their faith, expressed though books like "The Cloud of Unknowing", "Practicing the Presence of God", and "A Pilgrim's Progress". They saw prayer as work, as a central task of their vocation. The notion still convicts me deeply.

There are expectations I have for this trip, many of which I'm sure will be completely overshadowed by the will of the Lord. Nonetheless, I'll share what I've noticed here.

Most prominent in my mind, is my call to ministry. I accepted a call on my life at a young age, around ten years old, with the exact same words as this pilgrimage, "I will go"

In college, I studied Biblical Interpretation, but felt an inexplicable pressure on my heart to pursue art. So, I did, eventually earning my MA from a Sacred Art School, a program built around ministering through art. This taking the less tread path has meant I haven't at any point made ministry itself my full-time work, but I feel it may be time for that to change. I hope on this pilgrimage to see a reignition of my call, perhaps finding a task I can devote myself to for a matter of years, find what I've been preparing for.

One of the most edifying moment of this preparation for The Pilgrimage was the revelation the precedent that existed for me in Christ. Like Jesus, I happen to be thirty years old, preparing to enter a vocation of ministry, and I feel compelled to travel alone into the wilderness.

What's more, this is a year of Jubilee. Pope Francis declared 2025 a Jubilee, and many thousands will be taking pilgrimages this year to participate. Now I don't consider myself Roman Catholic, but I still take the words of a great spiritual leader seriously. No reason I couldn't be caught up in the tide of a grand movement.

I anticipate this being a very intimate time with God. We are talking hours of every day for a matter of months, solely dedicated to mediating on Him. I have an interesting conviction on my heart to approach God without pretext. I'm fascinated by the early early characters of the Holy Scriptures, who knew God before a formal law had been written, before an organization had been established. How did they experience him without a scripture, or liturgy, or rules to follow? What was the God encountered in their long trips across the desert? Could God make himself as evident to me in a similar setting?

I've come on this site asking for help, because I have no idea how this is going to be financially feasible. One of the big struggles that I had to overcome in accepting this calling was how incongruent is the plans and goals I have in place, it simply didn't make sense to me. Not the least of these is how to pay for it. Even a curtailed trip from Switzerland to Rome, cutting out France and England, involves months of no income, and no fewer expenses to cover. In short, I don't have that kind of money rattling around, but I'm charging ahead anyway. No other part of this makes sense to me, why should the finances make sense to me?

I'm coming to you, asking for help closing that gap. I plan to go wether the money is there or not. The Lord will provide.

God bless you, and pray for me as well.