The First Pilgrimage: Finding Faith in Bella Vista’s St. Bernard Parish

The First Pilgrimage: Finding Faith in Bella Vista’s St. Bernard Parish

By a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

Dear Henry,

I’ve talked before about my conversion to Catholicism and how I formally began the process during Lent, but I never told you just how special the first parish I attended truly was. Looking back, I don’t think I could have completed the conversion process without St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bella Vista, Arkansas, is a quiet community tucked into the hills of Northwest Arkansas, right along the Missouri border. Until 2011, it was a private retirement village, and even when we moved in, five years after they opened the gates to younger residents, most of our neighbors were still in their mid-70s. It was a sleepy place full of fishing, golf carts, and early bedtimes. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was precisely the sort of place I needed.

"Grace fills the empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void." 

Simone Weil

My body had already made it clear that I could no longer keep up with the hustle of the corporate world, and I was having a difficult time adjusting from the sharp rhythm of full-time work to the unstructured, often uncertain life of writing and photography. Bella Vista was gentle with me. It gave me room to rest. It allowed my spirit to catch up to my body.

And it was during this quiet, healing season that I realized I needed religion, too. As I’ve mentioned before in Taking the Back Roads to Rome, Catholicism had become the only reasonable option, but I still needed the right place and the right people to help me take the final steps.

"We find God in the unexpected places if we have the eyes to see." 

Pope Francis

My strongest motivator was Father B. He’s a member of the Indian Missionary Society and is “on mission” in Bella Vista, Arkansas. My first meeting with him was disarming in the most comforting way. I’d had run-ins with religious men in authority before, all non-Catholic, and most had been self-righteous, judgmental, boobie heads. Father B was nothing like them, and, as someone whose philosophical background leaned heavily on Buddhism and Stoicism, sitting across from an Indian priest who spoke calmly, barefoot and cross-legged in his chair, felt familiar and unexpectedly safe. His presence made sense in the language my soul already knew.

And then there were the parishioners. The average age at St. Bernard was about seventy-eight, and many of them were lifelong students. Quite a few had gone back to school “for fun” during retirement to earn theology degrees. They were pre-Vatican II Catholics with shelves of books and decades of thoughtful reading behind them, exactly the sort of parishioners someone like me could talk to for hours (see Finding God in Gomorrah for more on my reading years).

"You will never be alone. You are loved more than you know." 

St. John Paul II

But more than their knowledge, it was their kindness that changed me. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by genuine parental affection: people who noticed when I was hungry, asked if I was cold, and checked on me when I looked sad. They offered the sort of steady, uncomplicated love I’d never experienced growing up. It was bewildering at first, and then healing. Deeply healing.

Of course, nothing ever goes exactly according to plan, and neither did my conversion. But I had a whole community walking beside me, and St. Bernard was the perfect environment in which to fall into faith.

I used to think a pilgrimage meant going somewhere holy.
Now I know a pilgrimage is what happens when something holy reaches you.

a.d. elliott

Nothing about my journey was direct. It was the long way around, the back-road route, the slow, winding path that made no sense at the time. But maybe that’s why St. Bernard mattered so deeply. It was the first place where the long way finally began to feel like the right way.

That little parish was the first place in my life that felt safe, steady, and surprisingly tender, the first place where I could rest long enough for faith to take root. It wasn’t Rome. It wasn’t grand. But it was where something holy found me.

Every pilgrimage starts somewhere.

Mine started at St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

xoxo a.d. elliott

PS: There's a YouTube video for this post as well! Check it out here: https://youtu.be/J3sYCv_pV9I

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller based in Tontitown, Arkansas.

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

✨ #TakeTheBackRoads

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