As the congregation gathered at Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge on Easter morning came together to sing “Morning Has Broken,” the first rays of sun began to touch the tops of the outdoor chapel’s iconic pines.

The Cathedral of the Pines Easter sunrise service has become a community tradition for many families, and this year also welcomed 10 pilgrims who made a three-day journey walking from Boston to join the service.

Led by the Rev. Rita Powell of the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Harvard University, nine students undertook the trek to join the Rindge sunrise service, and to give readings throughout the service.

The Rev. Steve Miller of the First Church in Jaffrey was selected for the second year in a row to lead the service.

“What a privilege it is,” Miller said. “I love this idea that families have been doing this for generations. These are kids whose parents and great-grandparents who have been doing this, who are now coming to the service. That’s beautiful. And how wondrous this place is, to worship with the mountain and the sun. That’s the part that just moves my heart.”

Miller, who is friends with Powell, invited her to the service. Powell said the idea to turn the visit into a pilgrimage came out of other work the chaplaincy had been doing at Harvard, particularly with the Harvard Legacy of Slavery Report.

“We are trying to understand how to metabolize and understand this history, that’s a source of grief and difficulty,” she said. “It wasn’t something we could just learn and read about, but something we had to walk with and sit with.”

Powell said the project included visiting sites around the university and surrounding area in person,.

“It started to change out sense of the land around us, to remember these stories in a particular way, in prayer and in silence,” she said.

Powell said the idea of a Holy Week pilgrimage sprung from those experiences. The group decided to make the walk from Boston to Rindge for the sunrise service over three days – about 20 miles a day – with stops along the way at churches to attend Holy Week services. Members of churches in Lincoln and Fitchburg hosted the group overnight during its journey.

Gabriel Columbo, a fourth-year master’s student studying architecture at Harvard, said taking the journey by foot had the effect of both expanding and contracting his perception of the distance between the two points, and it also made him really consider each individual place they stopped at along the way.

“We’re really understanding that every place is a place – there’s a finite amount of places and land on this planet, and when you walk between those places, you’re feeling that continuity. The sacredness of being with the land in its vastness and its finitude, was very palpable,” Columbo said.

Rosalind Xu, a doctoral student studying chemistry and biology at Harvard, said she felt a deeper connection with the past, having to travel by the same means as people once did before modern conveniences such as the car or a train.

“We’re going 60 miles in three days – it’s a hard thing, and it’s like an offering to God, and I think it’s beautiful in that way,” Xu said.

Powell said one of the things she’ll take away from this journey is the idea that church doesn’t have to be a single, physical location. The group would make a point to stop and be present in locations along the route that they found particularly beautiful, Powell said. And during their overnight stops, they were taken in by families who opened their homes for nothing in return. The community of it was what struck her, Powell said.

“It made me feel the church in a different way – this made me feel it was more about homes and sharing and being open with one another,” Powell said.

Columbo agreed, saying he experienced an “overflowing abundance of love and grace and care” from their host families, despite being total strangers.

“To accept that love was beautiful and a very clear expression of God’s abundant love for us in our daily life,” Columbo said.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext.244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.

]]>