Like that proverbial journey of a thousand miles, the distance between a soul and God’s mercy can often be measured in steps.
It’s no accident that, as members of “the pilgrim church on earth,” Catholics have had a proclivity to pilgrimage—and more so than ever during this Jubilee Year of Mercy.
Catholic Business Journal spoke to those who have walked in pilgrim shoes—pilgrimage guides, pilgrimage businesses that do the planning and those who welcome the spiritual travelers at the end of the road—to find out what they’re learning on the journey to mercy.
Pilgrim
When Pope Francis announced the Jubilee Year of Mercy last year in Misericordiae Vultus, he spoke about the abiding importance of mercy in the life of faith—yet he also provided a practical and well-traveled path to make that mercy come alive.
“The practice of pilgrimage has a special place in the Holy Year,” he writes, “because it represents the journey each of us makes in this life. Life itself is a pilgrimage, and the human being is a viator, a pilgrim travelling along the road, making his way to the desired destination.”
Pilgrim Church
So where does a pilgrim begin his journey?
The first step is understanding, says Dr. Gregory Roper, of the University of Dallas (UD), Irving, TX. As head of UD’s Shakespeare in Italy program, Roper has shared with many of his students the glories of the Eternal City, both historically and spiritually.
According to Roper, a pilgrimage has always been a fitting way to tell the Catholic story of mercy.
“Pilgrimages are almost always penitential journeys,” he says. “One travels to the site of a saint’s remains not just to see and venerate those remains, but as a process of purgation and refinement of one’s soul. At the pilgrimage site, especially in the Middle Ages but still today, there would be numerous opportunities for the Sacrament of Penance. So one journeys in search of the mercy that Christ offers to us. It would be wonderful for the Pope’s call for a Year of Mercy if people all over the world were able to engage in pilgrimage as a way to experience the journey to mercy that is a pilgrimage.”
Historically, the Church has encouraged pilgrimage, Roper says, because of a pilgrimage’s “rootedness in the body, in the incarnational reality; in its democratic spirit and universality [everyone is called to pilgrimage]; in its structuring of a bodily and spiritual penitential discipline.”
While there are many ways to prepare for pilgrimage, Roper says, participants ought to by physically fit to undertake journeys such as the Camino de Santiago, a walk of almost 500 miles from France to Spain, or the 2,500 ft. vertical hike up Croagh Patrick in Ireland.
“These days,” notes Roper, “you can also fly in to a city—say Krakow to be around St. John Paul II’s world, or Rome—and have very little physical strain except perhaps standing in line.”
But it’s the spiritual preparation, Roper adds, which makes the crucial difference between a vacation—on foot or by air—and a pilgrimage.
“I think many people go to St. Peter’s in Rome, for instance, and just walk in as a tourist, looking around for historical or cultural experiences,” he says. “That’s different from a pilgrimage, and if one wants to, I think it requires a re-focus away from what one seeks in tourism. It involves preparing oneself to be challenged, challenged to penitential recognition of oneself, and to the call for change in one’s life. That means prayerfully thinking about the point of the experience, not just going to see things.
“I think…about students I have had on the UD Rome Program, who came into contact with St. Peter’s remains in the Scavi under St. Peter’s, and were utterly changed. The saints are there as models for us, but also calls to action. And yet they are also… signs of God’s enormous gift of mercy.”
Far and away
Those pilgrims looking to make the journey to mercy this year can hire Catholic pilgrimage companies such as Catholic Travel Centre Pilgrimages & Tours (CTC) of Burbank, CA, or Canterbury Pilgrimages & Tours, Inc., of Bedford, NH, to help them plan what CTC president and owner Scott Scherer calls an “an outer journey to an inner place.”
During the Year of Mercy, Scherer says, CTC is focusing on two vital destinations for the faithful—Rome and Krakow.
The pilgrimage to Rome, he says, will help pilgrims “experience the life of the early Apostles and the early Christian community, and to visit with Pope Francis, who is a living epistle of Mercy. We also are focusing on the Divine Mercy devotion, which was started by St. Faustina and is centered in and around the city of Krakow, in southern Poland. In Krakow, too, you encounter the life of St. John Paul II, as well as St. Maximilian Kolbe, in Auschwitz, near to Krakow.”
The guides at Catholic Travel Centre, Scherer says, see the Year of Mercy as an opportunity for that ultimate pilgrimage which Pope Francis encouraged all faithful to make.
“Any experience which takes us deeper into our faith,” he says, “deeper into our relationship with God, is taking us deeper, individually and communally, into the heart of God. Who wouldn’t want to go there?”
When it comes to business success, Scherer claims that CTC is also taking the right route. Since founding the company 25 years ago, he says, his company has been successful by counting quality over quantity.
“We provide a very personal service—you won’t find a machine answering the phones in our office,” Scherer says. “We also are not interested in high volume business, or in getting ‘big.’ We are interested in getting ‘best.’”
The way that CTC reaches its clients is also telling, Scherer says, noting that 90 percent of its business is either return clients or referred to CTC by previous clients.
“That means we are only taking, each year, 10 percent of our groups which come to us ‘cold,’” he says. “I think that says something. And our clientele is nationwide.”
It also helps that CTC believes in that sister of mercy—justice—when it comes to doing business.
“We believe in being fair,” he says. “You will find, I think, that the market sees us as being fair, and has rewarded us accordingly. We have fair prices. We offer excellent quality, and we are devoted to our clients, and they feel it.”
Local mercy
But pilgrimage doesn’t only mean taking a trip overseas as there are also many not-so-far-away places in the U.S. that the faithful can visit as pilgrims.
Pope Francis has called on bishops in the U.S.—and around the world—to name cathedrals and churches in their dioceses as pilgrimage sites. (Check with your local chancery for locations.) There are also numerous shrines and grottos in the U.S. which serve as ideal destinations for pilgrimage during the Jubilee Year, such as the National Shrine to the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, NY; the Mission Basilica of San Diego de Alcala in San Diego, CA; and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI.
Established in 1999 by now-Cardinal Raymond L. Burke when he was bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe was chosen as a Holy Door site for the Year of Mercy in the La Crosse diocese. Because of this privilege and its fundamental mission, says the shrine’s Pilgrimage Outreach Coordinator, Steve Doll, the La Crosse shrine is a perfect destination for the pilgrim faithful.
“The sole mission of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is to welcome all pilgrims and to serve their spiritual needs with an emphasis on God’s mercy,” he says. “This is done in a special way through having the Sacrament of Reconciliation available every day at any time.”
Built in honor of Our Lady, who appeared in 1531 to St. Juan Diego in Guadalupe, Mexico, the shrine provides an opportunity for prayer and reflection. With a full daily schedule of devotional and liturgical events, Doll says, the Shrine is a fitting site for world-weary pilgrims seeking spiritual renewal.
“With secularism and violence on the rise, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe provides a much needed sanctuary for us to withdraw from the world and prayerfully reflect on our own pilgrimage of life,” he says. “Our destination is Heaven, and it is important for all of us to take time frequently to stop on our journey of life and discern if we are on the right path.”
Welcoming thousands of pilgrims to the Shrine each year, Doll says that the site’s mission always comes first. Although much of the Shrine’s financial support comes from individual donations, the Shrine’s board is in the process of ensuring a more permanent endowment. “Simply put, our Mission comes first, and, in faith, we depend on the providence of God to provide our financial stability,” he says. “We are now in the process of soliciting contributions to an endowment trust, which will help to provide funding for this beautiful Shrine well into the future.”
While the main focus of the Shrine is always Our Lady’s advocacy of her Son, Jesus Christ, Doll says, the shrine also provides a veritable roundhouse of saints’ relics for pilgrims to venerate—including those of St. Faustina Kowalska, St. Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Miguel Pro and St. Maria Goretti.
“The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe has many first class relics of saints that are available for prayerful observance,” he says. “When giving the Church tour, I like to explain to pilgrims that the saints are like a Hall of Fame for Christian life. We know through the process of canonization that the saints are in heaven, and we can ask them to pray for us here on our earthly journey so that one day we might join them in heaven.”
Go—now!
Whether near or far, pilgrimage must be a part of every Catholic’s Year of Mercy. For the Holy Father’s words about pilgrimage in Misericordiae Vultus are not merely a suggestion, but an essential directive for this Holy Year.
Pope Francis writes, “to reach the Holy Door in Rome or in any other place in the world, everyone, each according to his or her ability, will have to make a pilgrimage. This will be a sign that mercy is also a goal to reach and requires dedication and sacrifice. May pilgrimage be an impetus to conversion: by crossing the threshold of the Holy Door, we will find the strength to embrace God’s mercy and dedicate ourselves to being merciful with others as the Father has been with us.”
Got a plan?
Where is your Year of Mercy taking you? Do you have a plan for pilgrimage this year? If you are taking steps to walk a path to mercy this Holy Year of Mercy, feel free to let us know in the Comments section (you must register first to prevent spam), or on our FaceBook page.
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Read the Holy Father’s directive for the Jubilee Year of Mercy here: Misericordiae Vultus
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Joseph O’Brien is a Catholic Business Journal correspondent. He may be reached at jobrien@catholicbusinessjournal.biz