‘I always knew God would look after me’
 |
Laurie Maxwell Stuart:
'All I can say is to trust in God always' |
Laurie Maxwell Stuart is a 22-year-old
Scat living and studying at St Patrick's in Soho, central London. He will be starting his second propaedeutic
year at the Scots College in Rome in 2014. His is a story of growth, both as a person
and in the Faith, that is quite different to that experienced by most young people.
In May 2010 he set out to walk from Paris to Jerusalem, a journey which took him
across Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.
I meet Laurie
near St Patrick's. At first sight, he seems like an average twenty something with
a wide grin and open expression. Yet there is also a determined passion evident.
This becomes clear as he recounts his unusual story.
For the
first 18 or so years Laurie moved between the Borders and Glasgow, but six months
teaching English on a remote Pacific island of Vanuatu were to change his direction.
The local population was friendly and hospitable, but he had no one he could really
talk to. He recalls long evenings on the beach sitting alone and beginning a journey
of prayer. "There was nothing in God's way there," he says, "no
material distractions. There was time to talk to Him."
On returning
home, Laurie found himself drawn to the lives of the Desert Fathers. Their example
helped him to understand something about himself. "I now wanted to let God
get in the way," he explains.
"The
idea of a pilgrimage, which is, after all something we do for the love of God,
began to take hold, and the idea of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land
kept drawing me. After all, it's the centre."
He conceived
the idea of walking from Paris - regarded for a long time as the centre of Western
Europe. His mother in particular, was apprehensive: another foreign trip in such
short order and on this occasion seemingly open-ended. She was only partially
won over by his enthusiasm. When I ask him if he has any regrets about making this
pilgrimage, he answers: "Only one, really. For the first three weeks away I
didn't contact my mother at all. She must have been frantic with worry. That was
a valuable lesson in itself."
The preparation
for this second, more extensive foray took a year to complete. Laurie saved up £
1,000 by working night shifts in a garage. The physical side of the work, and the
walk to and from home, were a useful preparation for the rigours to come. Each morning
Laurie would walk eastwards home towards the rising sun. His thoughts would
turn to Jerusalem and the pilgrimage he would soon be making. It was, he thought
one of those moments of actual grace that made the whole enterprise worthwhile.
In keeping
with the example of
the Desert
Fathers, his assembled kit was simple, even basic: a small tent, a stove and a
sleeping bag, together with a change of clothes, all contained in a single rucksack.
He spent £11 of the £ 1,000 on a plane ticket from Glasgow to Paris - one of
two concessions, as it turned out, to modern travel.
At 6am on
May 21 2010, under the shadow of Notre-Dame Cathedral and with the early morning
sun above him, Laurie said a prayer to Our Lady and began to walk.
Before leaving
Scotland, he had enlisted in the Legion of Mary and took 200 miraculous medals with
him on the journey - one of which was permanently tied around his wrist. He distributed
the medals as he went along, finally running out of them in Bulgaria. Devotion
to Our Lady was a key element in keeping Laurie going and was a source of encouragement,
solace and companionship along the way. In the early days loneliness was a challenge. "There
were days when I simply had no one to talk to," he says. "I wanted someone
to speak with, so I talked to Our Lady, saying the rosary three times a day: in
the morning for my family, at midday for the people I had met along the way and
at night simply to say 'thank you' to God and Our Lady." Those rosaries were
the only constants throughout the ever changing journey.
Laurie describes his pilgrimage as a kind of breaking down
of self-constructed façades: a desert-like,
purifying experience. "It really made me trust God and the power of prayer,"
he says. "That's the message for me of all this."
On that first night in the French countryside he pitched his
tent, made some light supper and in a moment of utter loneliness read Psalm 27,
"The Lord i s my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?". which
he says gave him fresh impetus.
By the third day the physical strains were beginning to tell.
Lauries legs ached so that he could hardly walk and he had sunstroke. He wrote
a postcard home next 10 a church in which he had prayed. "I didn't think I
could do another day," he says, grimacing at the memory, "let alone six
months or however long it was going to take."
The next morning he went back to the church and met the
priest, who on discovering he was a pilgrim took him to a place where he could
stay. "I knew then what was meant by Divine Providence," Laurie says.
"God would always look after me."
On he walked through France, Switzerland, Germany and into
the East. By now the tent had gone, lost somewhere along the way, and he began
to stay in monasteries that welcomed him as weary and travel stained pilgrim. He
stayed a week at one in Germany, having arrived so dishevelled that the guestmaster
whisked him off to the guest quarters to clean up. "I was a stranger and you
welcomed me": that Gospel phrase was to resonate throughout his journey.
Thoughts of a religious vocation, of serving others, began
to crystalise. Praying for others and giving out miraculous medals along the way
were expressions of this.
At first, perhaps understandably, Laurie thought about the
religious life: the ordered days seemed attractive. Soon, however, this gave way
to a more specific desire to serve God in the priesthood.
By August, Laurie had reached south-eastern Europe and the
Balkans. His first brush with danger came when he was set upon by an Alsatian on
the bank of the Danube. "He bit me hard and I still have the scar to show for
it," he says.
Dogs and Laurie were not destined to have an easy relationship.
By September he had arrived in Bulgaria and one evening, while looking for lodgings
in a village, he was attacked by an enormous hound - "the largest dog I have
ever seen". Laurie says: "I was footsore, tired and hungry. Luckily the
owner came along and saved me from what would have been an unpleasant end."
After the Bulgarian interlude, Laurie moved on to Turkey.
One day on a lonely stretch of road near Edirne, Laurie
encountered a group of wild dog. "I pray out loud to Our Lad '. but I remember
being so frightened that I mixed up my Holy Mary with the Our Father instead: ‘Hail
Mary who art in heaven '
Suddenly, a white Range Rover appeared out of nowhere. At
the same time, the dogs disappeared.
In Istanbul, Lauric lodged with a community of French Assumptionist
priests, one of whom, upon hearing of his plan to walk into Jerusalem, remarked:
"Our Lord rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. You can go there by plane."
Laurie flew to Jaffa , courtesy of the French Fathers. He
then began to walk from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Everyone he had spoken to had advised
him against this. "I felt so safe," he says with a smile. "I was
in God's playground. The Bible came alive for me there. Abraham, the prophets, Our
Lord: their presence felt so real. That was the important thing."
I ask Laurie to describe the end of his journey. He says:
"The hardest part of the journey was being without a home for so long: every
night looking for somewhere to lay my head, be it forest, field or monastery. So
when I arrived in Jerusalem my emotions were overwrought. I think I stopped several
times t; cry and pray. I had met a kind priest at Latrune monastery, near Emmaus, where I stayed. He had heard what I
was doing and offered me a place to sleep once I reached Jerusalem. So when I arrived
in that ancient and wonderful city I found the address he had given. Upon knocking
the door of the beautiful old Italian consulate, a young man answered and said:
'Ah , you must be Laurence, welcome". this is your home now.' J will never
forget those kind words and how much power they had for me. He led me to my room
and as he went to get me a glass of water I sat down on the bed in a daze.
"But the last and most beautiful part of the journey
was yet to come. As I looked down I noticed that my last miraculous medal that had
been tied around my wrist since Bulgaria had fallen off and lay on the bed next
to me. It was a final grace from Our Lady as if to say: 'You made it home, son,
rest in peace now.' Tears came in floods
and my soul sang as I thanked God from the depths of my heart.
"So to all who hear of my little story all I can
only say is to trust in God always and to pray.
Pray to Jesus and the Light of the World, for His guidance
along life’s path. Pray to Our Lady for comfort and solace in times of
darkness. And always, always in everything trust in God the Father and the protecting
power of His Holy Spirit.”
Sunday, July 29, 2012
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