In Via
Tracing the Roots: The Journey from Jewish Feasts to Christian Traditions with Dr. John Bergsma
Join us as we talk with Dr. Bergsma, a former Protestant pastor turned Catholic scholar, about the history of pilgrimage and how we got here. Discover how Jesus Christ embodied the fulfillment of ancient Jewish feasts and how their rhythms harmonize with the Christian liturgical calendar.
We invite you to journey with us, uncovering the profound legacy of pilgrimage and its eternal call to draw nearer to the heart of God. Whether you're a seasoned pilgrim or simply curious about the connections between ancient traditions and modern religion, this episode offers an inspiring invitation to explore the transformative power of sacred journeys.
You can access Dr. John Bergsma and Dr. Scott Hahn’s free Lenten challenge Exodus and Exile here.
Dr. Bergsma's books are available here, including Bible Basics for Catholics and
A Catholic Introduction to the Old Testament by Dr. Bergsma and Dr. Brant Pitre
Join us as we talk with Dr. Bergsma, a former Protestant pastor turned Catholic scholar, about the history of pilgrimage and how we got here. Discover how Jesus Christ embodied the fulfillment of ancient Jewish feasts and how their rhythms harmonize with the Christian liturgical calendar.
We invite you to journey with us, uncovering the profound legacy of pilgrimage and its eternal call to draw nearer to the heart of God. Whether you're a seasoned pilgrim or simply curious about the connections between ancient traditions and modern religion, this episode offers an inspiring invitation to explore the transformative power of sacred journeys.
You can access Dr. John Bergsma and Dr. Scott Hahn’s free Lenten challenge Exodus and Exile here.
Dr. Bergsma's books are available here, including Bible Basics for Catholics and
A Catholic Introduction to the Old Testament by Dr. Bergsma and Dr. Brant Pitre
Welcome to In Via the podcast where we're navigating the pilgrimage of life. We are all In Via, on the way and we are learning a lot as we go. I'm your host, Joan Watson. Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn more about our Catholic faith. Along the way, we'll see that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, Rome or Santiago, He also wants to encounter you right there in your car, on your run or in the middle of your workday. Welcome back everybody.
Joan Watson:Welcome to In Via the podcast, where we are navigating the daily pilgrimage of life. This episode is the first in a series of episodes. We've looked at individual pilgrimages, we've looked at people's experience on pilgrimage, but I really want to delve now into the history of pilgrimage and where Christians have gone over the ages and why we've gone those places and the history of this great tradition in our church. I think we can't start with Christian pilgrimage without looking at our elder brothers and sisters in faith, our Jewish brothers and sisters. Today I'm excited to talk about the history of Jewish pilgrimage and the pilgrimage feasts with Dr John Bergsma from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and the St Paul Center. Hi, Dr Bergsma.
John Bergsma:Hi Joan.
Joan Watson:Thanks for joining us and enlightening us on this important topic that so many Catholics don't know about the history of our pilgrimage, where we get it. Before we jump into talking about that, I would love to talk about you and introduce people to you. I always ask my guests if they could only tell people three sentences about themselves, what would they say?
John Bergsma:I would say I am a former Protestant pastor who entered the Catholic Church late in life, a husband and father of eight wonderful children, and I am passionate about Jesus and H is Church.
Joan Watson:Beautiful. Thank you very much. Dr Bergsma and I are actually both on another podcast Letters from Home out at the St Paul Center that looks at the Daily Mass Readings. If you are a podcast listener I highly recommend checking out, especially Wednesdays and Fridays checking that podcast out.
John Bergsma:Check out Thursdays you are.
Joan Watson:Yes, so I'm the Thursday, but I have to say you accompany me every Wednesday and Friday on the way to work. Thank you for doing that.
John Bergsma:That's wonderful.
Joan Watson:As I mentioned in the intro, I want to look at the history of pilgrimage, but I think it's only proper to begin with these Jewish pilgrimage feasts. We see pilgrimage playing a role in so many major religions. I think even some Christians are really reluctant to talk about pilgrimage because we think of the pilgrimage to Mecca with our Muslim brothers and sisters, but really we inherited it from our Jewish brothers and sisters. Why do you think pilgrimage plays a role in the major religions as it does?
John Bergsma:Yes, I think it's because we are incarnate creatures. We are flesh and blood creatures. We are spatial creatures, unlike the angels. So the angels have this fluidity and you're instantly here, instantly there or not, and that affects our thinking as well. We think spatially. So when we think about change, especially conversion, we tend to even describe it in spatial terms, as moving from one place to another, and think about, even in current language, people say, well, I'm in a happy place right now, or I'm not in such a good place right now, right, well, what do they mean by that? It's not anything related to their external circumstances, it's this interior space.
John Bergsma:So, I think, because we are spatial creatures, all the world religions, you know, take advantage of that or accommodate that, depending on how you look at it, by encouraging their worshipers to move from one place to another as a means of interior transformation. And so when we take it, when we go to a pilgrimage to Israel, for example, which I've led one most summers for the past 10 years, we go from the United States in our normal occupations and we travel all the way over to what we call the Holy Land, and then we travel in that Holy Land and visit those places where the Lord was and we have that physical sensation, that social experience of going from one place to a very, very different place, and those external factors make it easier for us to engage in like an internal change of our person, of our spirit, of our psychology, as we seek for conversion. So that's what I think is the deep reason for pilgrimage in all the world's religions.
Joan Watson:It helps us. I think there's a danger and this is probably going down a path we don't need to go down right now but I think there's this danger, obviously in today's world, of like over-spiritualizing the faith. Like I'm spiritual, not religious, but because we're sacramental, like we have the sacramental worldview, we are flesh and blood, it's ridiculous to say you're spiritual, not religious. We're called to be flesh, right.
John Bergsma:Right, right, yeah, it's almost like a faith and works thing, like show me your spirituality, you know, and I'll show you my religion by what I do. Right, what is your spirituality? How does it become concrete? And then, once spirituality does become concrete, it ends up developing into a religion. So you're right, it's. Yeah, I don't buy that either. And this is why the Church gives us wonderful things, like you know, penitential seasons like Lent and Advent, as well, as you know, great traditions like the Christian tradition of pilgrimage, and it helps us, as incarnate persons, really put flesh and blood onto our faith. And it's more than just an external thing. It's really intended to create the conditions of possibility for a deeper interior conversion.
Joan Watson:Yeah, and I mean, we didn't make up this idea of pilgrimage, the Lord did yes. When we look at the idea of you know, you going to Jerusalem every summer, you're walking in the footsteps not just of great people like Jerome right or great pilgrims, but you're also walking in our Jewish brothers and sisters footsteps. So what was that role of pilgrimage for the Jewish people?
John Bergsma:Yes, the Mosic liturgy that was set up by, you know, Israel's great lawgiver is really found in the Pentateuch, of course, and especially defined in the book of Deuteronomy. And what Moses instituted in Deuteronomy was one place of worship for the entire land. And so he said, when you go into the place, into the land that the Lord has given you, you should seek for the place which the Lord, your God, will choose and establish. You know a sanctuary there, and that is where you should bring all of your sacrifices and your ties and your offerings. And of course, that involved travel to the central sanctuary.
John Bergsma:So Moses did not require the people of Israel to travel there every you know Sabbath, but he instituted a liturgy that was really based around three great pilgrimage feasts, and those were Passover, which was at the beginning of the grain harvest, and then Pentecost, also called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Os, and that came at the end of the grain harvest, and then a fall festival that coincided with the fruit harvest and the wine making, and oftentimes even the incoming of the new wine, like wine that had, you know, just fermented for a few weeks and was fresh, and that was the Feast of Tabernacles, so kind of a spring, a summer and a fall feast.
John Bergsma:Those three feasts were times when Moses insisted all the people of Israel needed to travel to the central sanctuary and their worship together and really to celebrate. Moses insists that all of this must be done with joy and that it should involve everyone husband and wife, father and mother and children and servants, and the Levites and the sojourners and, you know, the resident aliens. Everybody in the land should gather together and really enjoy themselves in God's presence.
Joan Watson:So I mean we see Passover I think most of the listeners would be very familiar with the idea of Passover because we see it very clearly in the Book of Exodus. These other festivals like could the cynics say, well, you're just celebrating the harvest like the Romans celebrated wine? Could the cynics say, like, these are just pagan ways of celebrating the harvest, like any other group? Are these uniquely religious for the Jews? What would you kind of respond to that?
John Bergsma:Yeah, so there is a beautiful correspondence between the natural calendar and the what you might call Salvation Historical calendar of the people of Israel. So these feasts, on the one hand, coincided with different agricultural activities, so I mentioned that. You know, passover comes at the beginning of the harvest, pentecost at the end, tabernacles at the fruit harvest. But the festivals weren't just or weren't even mostly celebrating those agricultural events that follow the course of the natural year. They were also associated for the people of Israel with events in their saving history.
John Bergsma:So Passover celebrated the parting from Egypt in the beginning of the Exodus, and then Pentecost celebrated the giving of the law, the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus, chapter 20.
John Bergsma:And the 50 days in between Passover and Pentecost corresponded to the time that it took the people of Israel to travel from Egypt out to Mount Sinai. And then the Feast of Tabernacles, in the fall fell many, many, many weeks later and it celebrated the completion of the construction of the Tabernacle. And they had a way of charting out that time between Pentecost to the Feast of Tabernacles to correspond to the time that it took to build the Tabernacle in the wilderness. So you have the deliverance from both spiritual and physical slavery and then the bestowal of the covenant and the giving of God's law which enlightens our intellect and our lifestyle, and then you have the gift of a place in which to worship God and to experience communion with him. And these were the three pillars of the saving event of God's redemption of the people of Israel, and so they were commemorated and brought back to mind, made present three times a year by these great pilgrimages to the Holy City.
Joan Watson:I love the idea of Pentecost. I think most people think of Pentecost as being our holiday, right, our Christian Feast. And so to think of all those people. That's why they're there for Acts of the Apostles, that's why they're all there. They're gathered for joy and they get to receive with joy this new law from Peter and so that beautiful Old and New Testament. You say they're supposed to go with joy. What did they do during this time? Obviously it would vary from feast to feast. We know kind of more about what they probably did during Passover than the other feasts.
John Bergsma:Yes, that's true. So at Pentecost they had readings from the law and they would celebrate for seven days. The reason why Pentecost was called the Feast of O's or Weeks is because there was a set of seven weeks that passed from Passover to Pentecost. So it was a great holiday celebrated with great festivity, but it was overshadowed by the Feast of Tabernacles, which was considered to be the greatest of the Jewish festivities. There's a line in the Mishnah, which is this early collection of rabbinic lore, that says you know, if you did not see Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles, you've never really seen a party. Okay, so they did fantastic things.
John Bergsma:The Feast of Tabernacles is associated with the building of the Tabernacle and the temple. The prophets, like Joel and Ezekiel and others, spoke of the temple in the end times as a source of light and water for all the world. You know, in light and water are two things that you need for life, so really the source of life for the whole world. And in order to ritualize that, the Jews in the time of our Lord had a water ceremony every day for seven days during the Feast of Tabernacles, where they would pour out water on the altar and make an artificial river to pre-enact that prophecy of Ezekiel 47 of the river of life that flowed out of the temple. On the eighth day they stopped that and they began to pray for rain for the next agricultural season. And it's on that eighth day that was quiet that Jesus stands up. Yes, in John 7:37 it says if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me. As the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.
John Bergsma:Another thing that they did in the Feast of Tabernacles was they created enormous menorah, menorah that were up to 30 feet high. A menorah is a huge candle stand right and they would light that 24 hours a day for the seven days of the Feast. And it created so much light that the saying was there was no shadow in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles and of course that was in the temple courts, and so the temple was illuminating the whole city. And you'll notice in John 7 through 9, which are the three chapters of the Gospel of John that take place during the Feast of Tabernacles. That's also where we find our Lord saying I am the light of the world. So you know, john is thought by many to be the most liturgical of the Gospels, because John seems to be quite intentionally drawing in themes and connections with the ways in which the Jewish feasts were celebrated in the time of our Lord, showing that Jesus really is the fulfillment of the liturgical calendar of the people of Israel.
Joan Watson:I mean, on one hand, it's just interesting to picture Christ participating in these, whether he's getting lost in Jerusalem because he's on pilgrimage, or just picturing Christ celebrating these with his apostles, but then leading them even farther and saying I'm the fulfillment I've come to bring you even farther than where you were. And you can see why he would create such a stir. Because we're reading these words out of context, as 21st century Christians were reading these words and hearing Christ say these things, and we're like, oh, he's light, he's water, big deal. But then to think of Christ saying these things in this context had to have created a stir and we know it's it.
John Bergsma:Yes, I mean, it's all about Jesus being the new temple. You know John 2, 21,. He spoke of the temple of his body, and so in John seven through nine, we're seeing that Jesus is indicating hey, I am the temple, I'm the source of light, I'm the source of water, but you know, really, that's talking about the Holy Spirit. In other words, I'm the source of the Holy Spirit, this is where you, you come to me in order to receive the Spirit of God. But also what that implies is I am the place of pilgrimage. So, for Christians, every pilgrimage is also is always a journey into Jesus. It's a journey to Jesus and into him because he is the pilgrimage location. You know, all of the pilgrimages of Israel, you know, terminated at the temple in Jerusalem and all of our pilgrimages, you know, culminate in a deeper connection and experience of the Lord.
Joan Watson:Yeah, it's interesting that we celebrate Pentecost and we celebrate, you know, Easter and good, obviously, Good Friday around Passover. I did not prepare you for this question, so I'm throwing this out here. Do you think it's interesting that we don't celebrate something similar to Tabernacles, that that hasn't?
John Bergsma:made it into. Oh, we do, we do, I'm ready for this. It's Christmas Because because the, the Feast of Tabernacles, celebrated the dwelling of God with his people, and that's what Christmas is. Christmas is the, the indwelling of God in the tent of the Lord's body. And the real issue there is John 114 says the word became flesh and it. The Greek is more like this the word became flesh and Tabernacle among us. Okay, the Greek is Skaena, which is from Skene, a tent or a Tabernacle, and that's intentional, like John doesn't say the word became flesh and dwelt it's really not a good translation or or inhabited, or something like that. It's really tinted, took up a tent, and it's intentionally connecting Jesus to the wilderness tent, the tent of God's presence, which was the tabernacle. And so the Feast of Tabernacles in the New Covenant is taken over by the Feast of the Nativity, the Feast of the Incarnation, where the second person of the Trinity takes up that tent of human flesh to dwell with us for a time.
Joan Watson:Wow, I love it. So forget Hanukkah. We want to think about Hanukkah in December, but we really should be thinking about tabernacles.
John Bergsma:Yes, but Hanukkah, interestingly, was considered a kind of reprise of tabernacles or a second Feast of Tabernacles, and so it's very, very appropriate. I mean, hanukkah is celebrating, you know, the reconsecration of the temple which was the successor of the tabernacle.
Joan Watson:And the menorah and the light.
John Bergsma:Yes, absolutely, so it works quite well.
Joan Watson:Would they have necessarily, so they wouldn't necessarily have gone to Jerusalem, then it wouldn't have been considered a pilgrimage Feast. Or is it because it's a later addition to the liturgical calendar? Would they have considered a pilgrimage?
John Bergsma:Yes, many, many did make pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication, although it, which is, you know, hanukkah, although it was, um, you know, a lesser Feast because it wasn't founded on Mosaic authority, um, but it was a kind of um, you know, as we read in Maccabees, it was a civil slash religious ordinance that was passed that we're going to have this pilgrimage Feast, you know, late in the year, really a winter Feast, and um, so. So, you know, pious, jews did, you know, travel up to the temple for the celebration of that as well?
Joan Watson:When we're looking at the pilgrimage Feasts. Um, can you speak a little bit about the Psalms of Ascent? These songs, that would be would have been sung on pilgrimage.
John Bergsma:Absolutely, uh, a good point. So Psalms 120 through 134 are this set of 15, uh, songs of Ascent. There's been a lot of debate about what Ascent means. Um, these Psalms are also called gradual Psalms in the older, you know, Extraordinary Form Mass, and they have a special role there. But but the reason why they're called songs of Ascent, or literally in Hebrew, songs of going up, is because they were songs, as you mentioned, that were sung, enchanted, when people were going up to Jerusalem, uh, for pilgrimage.
John Bergsma:Now, jerusalem is at one of the highest points within the land of Israel, and so to get to Jerusalem you have to go up and, uh, to this day, the term in Jewish culture for making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem is to make aliyah, to make an Ascent in other, in other words, so, uh, that is, you know, kind of the background, and there's 15 of them, and they were probably chanted while pilgrims were on the road. But then the number 15 becomes important once you get to Jerusalem, because there are 15 steps that led up to the temple sanctuary, and so it's believed that the Israelites would stand on each of the steps and recite, uh, each of the Psalms of Ascent one last time before entering into the temple and offering sacrifice there as well. And there's a, there's a beautiful um movement in the Psalms of Ascent, joan, that I've worked out. Um, I'm trying to think if I've, uh, written this up anywhere. It might be in my introduction to the Bible, old Testament from Ignatius Press, .
John Bergsma:But, um, if you look at where the psalmist is in the Psalms of Ascent, he begins the Psalms of Ascent where he's far from Jerusalem and in Psalm 120. In 121, he's moving towards Jerusalem. In 122, his feet are within the gates of Jerusalem, and then for the rest of the Psalms he's kind of moving around in the city and then the Psalms of Ascent move, kind of move spiritually forward and then back. The psalmist makes advances in faith and then things like the problem of evil in the world and various setbacks cause him to move a bit away from God, and so there's this back and forth movement that culminates in Psalm 134 with this intimacy with God when he's inside the temple during the night watch. And this is very intimate.
John Bergsma:I don't know if folks have ever gone, for example, to Rome and sat in St Peter's Square at night, but it's one of the most intimate things you can do. You feel like you're in the quiet, beating heart of the church. You can see the papal apartments where the Pope was asleep up there and you feel so close to God and to the church. And this is what the Psalms of Ascent are like. You end up sleeping over the night in the temple with the priests who are on duty at that time and enjoying the presence of God during this time of quiet. So the Psalms of Ascent, to make a long story short, are a kind of back and forth movement of the soul towards God that culminates in this sweetness of relationship with him.
Joan Watson:What a beautiful mirror of our own pilgrimage of life. We talk a lot on this podcast about how pilgrimage mirrors our lives. None of us are on a straight shot pilgrimage. We all struggle with the problem of evil we struggle with why does God let this happen in my life? And we fall back and there's that wavering. But just to know that our ultimate goal is to stay faithful so that we can experience within his gates, the heavenly gates, encountering him in that sweetness of heaven, you make me want to go now. Read them immediately. So thank you for that.
Joan Watson:But just that microcosm of life.
John Bergsma:Yes, yeah, indeed, yeah. They're a wonderful, wonderful portion of the of the Psalter to to memorize and recite and just make part of our spiritual lives.
Joan Watson:I always loved the desire that it evoked, like there's such a desire for Jerusalem and such a desire and I want that in my life for for God. I want that in my life for Eucharistic adoration. I want to hunger for Christ the way the Jewish people hunger to be in Jerusalem. I want to hunger for heaven in that way.
John Bergsma:And you can see that in the Psalms.
John Bergsma:Yeah, jerusalem is. In one sense it's Jesus I mean, he is the temple, which is what made Jerusalem Jerusalem but then it's it's the church as well, because the church is his mystical body. And so that longing for Jerusalem that's expressed in so many Psalms is also our longing to be united with all the saints and purified of all our sins and be in closeness not only with the Lord, but with all our brothers and sisters as well. So, yeah, it really speaks to the longings of the Christian heart.
Joan Watson:I loved how earlier you spoke about like pilgrimage into Jesus, right that Jesus is the fulfillment of these pilgrimage feasts. And, just as we wrap up, since we can't currently travel to the Holy Land, I hope you go this summer, I hope that that's on the horizon, but we know that currently, right now, when this airs the beginning of Lent, we can't go to the Holy Land on pilgrimage right now. How would you encourage people, especially as we're in this beautiful season of Lent? How would you incorporate, encourage people to incorporate pilgrimage into their spiritual lives?
Joan Watson:looking, at this great tradition from our Jewish brothers.
John Bergsma:Sure, well, you know, one thing I would encourage folks to do is really lean into the liturgical year, and that is by embracing the feasts, because the feasts and the seasons are set up in a way to present a kind of journey of the life of Jesus and the life of the church, and we all have, we all kind of basically know that. But embrace it more fully and try to make each day count. You know, look carefully at the liturgical calendar, stay aware of the progress that we're making through the scriptures and the readings for Mass each day and the progress that we're making through the life of the Lord and after, you know, the ascension in the life of the church and so on through the liturgical year, because it's all a kind of pilgrimage. And there's, you know, very practically speaking, there's something that you know our listeners and viewers can take advantage of, and that's at the St Paul Center. Dr Hahn and I have worked on a project called Exodus in Exile for this Lent, where every day of Lent I'm leading a study of the Book of Exodus. And the Book of Exodus is a kind of pilgrimage book of where the people of Israel move from Egypt to Sinai and build the Tabernacle and in fact all the events of the pilgrimage feasts of Israel are recorded within the Book of Exodus, and so it's kind of an ideal book to work on during Lent, because you know you have the 40 chapters of Exodus that conveniently lay across the 40 days of Lent, and since Jesus journeys out into the wilderness, and Exodus is the people of Israel's journey as well. They do that, and so I have these podcasts on Exodus that are going to drop on each of the days. One chapter of Exodus a day. Folks can read Exodus themselves, or they can listen to me read it or watch me read it. That's really exciting. And then I'm going to comment for about five minutes on that reading and give a challenge each day. Try to make it practical and say, okay, so this is the message of this chapter of Exodus. How can we do something today to kind of condense that into action in 2024?, as Christians now journey through Lent? So I usually give it, you know, something that can be done in about 15 minutes. That really is actionable, not not too much or too little. Try to hit that sweet spot for each of the days of Lent, and then on Sundays, which don't really belong to Lent, dr Han is doing a fantastic podcast on exile, based off his book Catholics in Exile.
John Bergsma:Using that metaphor of exile, we remember that the people of Israel, much later in their history, lost their land again. After having gained it in the Exodus, they lost it again and were taken out into Babylon and for 70 years had to live in a foreign land. And for us, as Catholics in you know, the 21st century almost anywhere in the world feels like a foreign land, because we have no Catholic nations anymore. Every government seems to be against us. Society, you know, regards the teachings of the church as offensive. How do we survive? Dr Han looks back at the prophets Ezekiel, isaiah, jeremiah, who spoke into the exile condition of the people of Israel, and draws just great insights and practical applications for living faithful to Lord in a world that's hostile to us, until we get to our heavenly home, because we're all on pilgrimage, as you point out.
Joan Watson:I love it and we will link all of that in the show notes. People have a little bit of catching up to do, but they can do it. It'll be good and I really appreciate that that it just fits so well with the Lenten theme but then also this idea of pilgrimage and being on pilgrimage. So we'll link all that. I'll also link some of Dr Bergsma's books. I think people will really enjoy Bible basics and some of your other works just to kind of get our you know, get just become more appreciative, I think, of our Old Testament, that what our Jewish brothers and sisters have done for us in our faith. So thank you for this time, Thank you for introducing us to this Jewish concept of pilgrimage. That can really illustrate and help us then, not just in our Catholic idea of pilgrimage but then just even in our daily lives. So thanks so much for joining us, Dr Bergsma.
John Bergsma:Yeah, you're welcome, Joan. Thanks for having me on.
Joan Watson:Thanks for listening. Listeners, continue that this great practice of Lent and join us next time as we continue to look at the history of pilgrimage. God bless.