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Pilgrimage

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Dear Catholic Exchange:

What is “pilgrimage” all about? I hear a lot of people talking of going on pilgrimage to Rome. But I do not understand what they are going there to do. Can you please tell me?

More questions:

1. What is pilgrimage?

2. What are they going there to do?

3. Can anybody go there?

Mr. Okeke

Dear Mr. Okeke,

Peace in Christ!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “pilgrimages evoke our earthly journey toward heaven and are traditionally very special occasions for renewal in prayer. For pilgrims seeking living water, shrines are special places for living the forms of Christian prayer, “in Church” (no. 2691).

The Directory for Popular Piety has an entire chapter on pilgrimages. After a history, there are sections on “Spirituality of Pilgrimage” and “Conducing a Pilgrimage” that might be helpful.

A recent issue of the magazine Lay Witness focused on this topic. Here are a few articles you might find of interest:

The Grace of Pilgrimage: An Interview with Archbishop Raymond L. Burke

“When we leave our customary surroundings and make the effort to travel to a holy place, we receive the grace to look anew at our own life in Christ and see more clearly the extraordinary mystery of God’s merciful love in our lives.”

Are We There Yet? by Leon J. Suprenant, Jr.

“As Christians, even though we appreciate the significance of our earthy lives, we realize that we’re still “here,” but we want to get “there” — to the glories of heaven with our Triune God and the throngs of angels and saints. We all resonate with these words from the sacred liturgy: “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?” (Antiphon 1, Monday Morning Prayer, Week II). In other words, when are we going to get there?”

A Convert's Pilgrimage by Christopher Cuddy

“On the anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, I became Catholic. While I had yet to go through the RCIA program — I was officially received into the Catholic Church the following Easter Vigil — my heart had given consent to Catholicism. My pilgrimage was over.”

Sanctifying Your Vacation by Juan Landa

“There are so many beautiful destinations to make a pilgrimage. Many of these places are filled with amazing natural beauty as well as remarkable human masterpieces. There are places so filled with history that you can still see, touch, and walk the ancient streets.”

Pilgrim's Progress: Faith of our Fathers by Mike Aquilina

“We needn’t fly to Rome or Jerusalem to make a pilgrimage. Old St. Pat’s is one of our family’s favorites, and it’s just a 25-minute drive on a weekend. What treasures are hidden in the history of your local church — your communion of saints?”

In addition to these articles, we have a Faith Fact, Hope: A Pilgrim's Virtue

“What is a pilgrim? At root, a pilgrim is one who journeys in foreign lands. A pilgrim is one who is “on the way” rather than already at home. The opposite of a pilgrim, then, is one who has arrived at the destination. A pilgrim has not yet attained this goal.”

United in the Faith,



Eric Stoutz

Information Specialist

Catholics United for the Faith

827 North Fourth Street

Steubenville, OH 43952

800-MY-FAITH (800-693-2484)

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Comments

  1. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Apology accepted.  It is really hard to be online and to dialogue like a human.  It is too easy to misinterpret when there's no intonation or facial expression to go along with it.  I'm sure each one of us would apologize if you ever felt attacked by us as well! 

    The bottom line is, you have to be true to yourself. You have to be able to look God in the eye and tell Him you did your utmost best at trying to figure out "What is Truth?"  A dialogue with God on a constant, regular (I'd suggest daily) basis is first and foremost key.  I think – I hope – everyone here can respect your freedom to believe what you believe…because a coerced belief is useless anyway.

    I'll tell you how I got to be where I am now.  I come from the south.  But I was born and raised Catholic.  Interestingly enough, though, it wasn't until I came to New England for college that I was squarely faced with Evangelical Christians who knew their Bible like the back of their hand (so it seemed), and who constantly challenged me as to why I was Catholic because this…that…the other.

    Almost immediately I was immersed (not by preference) into having to answer FOR MYSELF why I still wanted to be Catholic.  How would I approach answering that?!?  It became clear to me rather quickly that if I took the "top-down" approach and took each "topic" and tried to figure out if each one was right, I could go in circles or possibly never reach any conclusions.

    So I took the "bottom-up" approach.  Let me explain.

    First, I had to answer whether or not I truly believed that Jesus Christ was God.  Because if He wasn't, then there was no point being Christian at all – whether Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox or anything.  If Jesus was not God, then his death and "resurrection" were meaningless to me.  If not, would I be Jewish or something else?  Or atheist? 

    I had to answer from my own experiences to-date with Christ, and it was clear to me that He, in fact, exists and has effect on my life and that He is God.

    Great.  Now what?  NOw I had to figure out – would I remain Catholic?  Orthodox?  Did the Catholic Church fail and I needed to find the "right" Protestant perspective?

    I went back to the original question.  Is Jesus God?  If Jesus IS God, then would He have created a Church that He could not keep from error?  In all honesty, I could not accept being a part of a church with a God that is not powerful enough to keep it from error.  What would the point be?  What would the point be of His coming down and becoming man so that He could save us from our sins – only to have that message "lost in translation"?  The idea always hit me as ludicrous. 

    That really made it much more "clear" and "easy" for me.  So all that was left, really,  was to decide between Catholic and Orthodox.  And given I wasn't Greek or Russian or Romanian or any other nationality, the Orthodox option didn't really seem like the right place either.

    So now I had "logically" convinced myself I needed to be Catholic.  But that didn't touch on all the teachings of the Church that such a profession entails.  There was much more to do.  Again, I could not attack each and every "topic" because it was too enormous a task.  Looks like bottom-up approach was the most "logical" way to do it.  (Can you tell I'm trained as a scientist?  When I tell people that, they usually say, "OOOHHH! That explains a lot, Loretta!")

    On the one hand, we have the Bible.  If I was going to live my life by that book, there were some questions I needed to answer for myself.  Where did it come from?  How do we know it really is from God?  How can we trust it as being "infallible" and absolute? ETC.

    On the other hand, we have this Church – the Catholic Church – that makes this audacious claim that it, too, is infallible.  Why?  Where does it get this basis?

    Well, the Bible comes straight from the hands of the Catholic Church.  There's just no 2 ways around that one.  And the reason we can know that the Bible is infallible is because God made His Church (filled with all fallible people) an infallible organism.  To me, it all fell out of the equations, if you will.  If the Bible is infallible, then so much the Church.  In a way, "like begets like".

    All along the way, I should say, I feel "blessed" to have found Scott Hahn's books and tapes because all of his approach in explaining Catholic teaching is excrutiatingly Biblically-based.  Having fallen head over heals in love with the Bible, having his knowledge of it (it would have taken me YEARS to get anywhere near that!) only sped me along my path.

    Back to my Evangelical friends.  I found very quickly that they were not nearly as learned about their Bible as they seemed to be at first.  Very quickly (ok…this took a course of a few years!), they learned to stop asking me questions because they didn't like the questions I posed back to them – especially now "armed" with the Bible. 

    I learned that the Bible cannot be used in a proof-text manner (as they were trying to do).  It is far more organic than that.  It is not a text.  It is the Word of God, who at one single point in time became a man to save us from our sins.

    As to your last question – Yes.  Jesus is coming again, although we do not know the day or the hour.  And the wheat will be separated from the chaff.  And the Heavenly Jerusalem (which IS because of Christ's death and resurrection) will unite with Earth. And, instead of a partial-heavenly-kingdom here (thanks to the Eucharist and to the Baptized souls all around us), it will be fulfilled…but not until all things have been  made subject to Him.

    God is Good.  Have a Happy Holy Week.

  2. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Good thread.

    I liken some Catholic theology to a wonderful architectural feature, like a balcony, on a big beautiful building. You can get into discussions to understand more about the beautiful balcony, then realize you don't really understand how the room it hangs on got there, or how the walls of the building rose up to that floor, or how the foundation can support that wing of the building. So we even though often get into discussions about Mary, or faith and works, or the pope, and we realize we have to know the basics.

    ·         Is there a God?

    ·         Is God personal; judging and forgiving me?

    ·         Is there a heaven and a hell?

    ·         Does God speak to us?

    ·         Is the Bible God's word? Where did it come from?

    ·         Is Jesus God?

    ·         Did Jesus establish a Church?

    ·         Is the Catholic Church the Church started by Jesus?

    ·         Can I trust the teachings of the Church?

    ·         How should I live in response to these answers?

    Then we go back and the balcony looks even more wonderful! Keep searching for Truth, chaletart, and you will find it.  And then you will be home.

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