‘Pilgrimage is always about change’
Two leaders with Taos ties step down from beloved 100-mile walk
The usual calm around the santuario in Chimayó started to give way to a buzz of energy Saturday morning (June 8). Families and old friends began lining the entrance of the adobe church, waiting for the pilgrims who were walking the final miles of a weeklong journey through New Mexico.
Finally, a line of people in white shirts, led by pilgrims carrying a cross and a painting of the Virgen de Guadalupe, turned off the road and into the crowd, belting out rounds of “Vienen con alegría.”
This particular encuentro of hundreds of pilgrims has become an anticipated sight at the santuario. Since the early 1970s, the Pilgrimage for Vocations has called New Mexicans to the 100-mile walk, one that’s a spiritual endeavor even more than it is a physical one.
This year, two people who have long stewarded the pilgrimage, Deacon Donald Martínez of Our Lady of Guadulupe Catholic Church in Taos and the Rev. Edmund Savilla, who was the priest in Taos for 17 years, are stepping down as the leaders of the annual trek.
The departure comes with a mix of loss and possibility for the people who have walked the pilgrimage for many years — the people who will now help usher it into its next transition.
“For it to continue for almost
50 years, and for it to still hold that beautiful spiritual aspect, that’s just a testament to their leadership,” said Miguel Rael, a
20-year-old Questa native who this year led a group of pilgrims from Albuquerque.
“I’m excited for them because they worked hard and they deserve a break. Now it’s up to us to keep pilgrimage going,” Rael said.
A sacred walk begins
The first pilgrimage happened in 1973 with a small band of young men from the Estancia area. Generations of New Mexicans, especially from of the small communities in the north, have taken part in the tradition that’s steeped in symbolism and community, culture and faith.
It’s that collective dedication across families and parishes that’s made the pilgrimage into the institution it is, Martínez said. “This pilgrimage hasn’t gotten to where it’s at because of me or because of you. It’s gotten there because of us,” he said.
During the first week of June, as many as 200 peregrinos and guadalupans (male and female participants) do the pilgrimage. They walk 20 miles a day, primarily praying for vocations in the Catholic church, like the priesthood, but also for their personal intentions. They sleep in gyms and community centers, and they eat with parish groups in villages along the way.
“All the things our faith teaches us, you experience that week on pilgrimage,” said Rael.
“You’re sacrificing, loving your brothers in pain, praying. When you leave, you’re faced with the reality of the world again, but you’re ready to take on its challenges. You are ready to live, to love, to care,” he said. “My spiritual battery is always filled up to 100 percent.”
It takes a lot of work throughout the year to coordinate the logistics of hosting that many walkers in that many communities. And as far back as most walkers can remember, it’s been Martínez and Savilla who’ve made it happen.
Continuity
Savilla has served as the spiritual director since 1998, and Martínez, with the support of his wife, Celina, has served as the rector for even longer.
“In order to get that many people down the road, we had to have some kind of organization,” Savilla said. “At that time, every route was kind of doing its own thing. My task was to establish some type of continuity.”
Savilla, known across the state simply as “Father Ed,” first got involved with the pilgrimage in 1983 while in Taos.
He kept the structure of the pilgrimage — a daily cycle of silence, singing and prayer, and then conversation — but innovated when he needed to. New rituals were periodically introduced and routes were added when participation swelled; around 500 people walked during high points in the 1980s and 1990s. Routes now start in Costilla, Chama, Bernal, Estancia and Albuquerque.
A group of 15 women from Taos County first walked in
1981, according to Sister Emilia Atencio, but it wasn’t until
1998 that women were finally allowed to lead their own routes.
That Martínez is a deacon is one of the fruits of the Pilgrimage for Vocations.
He walked for several years, always praying one of his kids would enter religious life. But in the middle of one pilgrimage, a voice told him, “I don’t want your children. I want you,” he said.
He joined the deaconate not long after that.
Martínez walked the pilgrimage for four decades, until health issues forced him to take a less active role about five years ago. Pilgrims’ legs may be sore and their feet battered, but not being able to walk, he said, has left him with “spiritual blisters.”
Rough patch
Martínez and Savilla shepherded the pilgrimage through a particularly rough patch in the church and its priesthood.
Michael O’Brien, who served as the priest in both Questa and Ranchos de Taos in the 1980s, started the pilgrimage. As the sexual abuse crisis came to light, so did allegations against O’Brien; he’s been named as a sexual abuser in at least 18 lawsuits, many stemming from Taos County, and has been flagged as a “credibly accused” priest by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. He died in 1993.
Savilla said there were conversations with pilgrimage organizers and archdiocese officials about the walk and its ties to O’Brien, with people asking, “Should it end, should we let it die?”
Despite the cloud of questions, Savilla stepped into the leadership role because several hundred people were still faithfully making the walk each June.
And now, after 30 years leading the pilgrimage, Martínez and Savilla are passing the leadership on to the next generation.
“I hope this tradition can continue for many more decades,” said Carlos Trujillo, a 24-year-old pilgrimage leader from the Española area.
“What Father Ed says, you don’t take it with a grain of salt ... it’s almost the law. It’s really hard for me to imagine what the pilgrimage will be like [without them]. A lot of direction in the next couple of years will fall on the pilgrims themselves,” he said.
The future
While the longtime peregrinos and guadalupanas who serve on the steering committee will continue organizing the pilgrimage, two priests — the Rev. Graham Golden, O. Praem., of the Norbertine abbey in Albuquerque, and the Rev. Michael Niemczak, assistant vocations director for the archdiocese — are stepping into the shoes of Savilla and Martínez.
“I came to care very much about [pilgrimage] and see the beauty in it,” said Golden. “There’s so many avenues to bring people together in intimate ways you don’t get to experience all that often. It really is a very organic, grassroots, lay-led movement.”
He said no major transitions are planned for the pilgrimage, just the “incremental changes it’s always known from year to year.”
Rather than being scared by the inevitable evolution, Martínez and Savilla are excited to hand off the pilgrimage so it can grow in new and unpredictable ways.
“It’s in good hands,” Martínez said.
“Pilgrimage is always about change,” said Savilla. “No two years are alike.”
Where the pilgrimage goes now, he said, is “entirely up to the Holy Spirit.”