Be a Pilgrim If You Can

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As someone who is skeptical by nature, training and profession, I had my doubts about the benefits of going on a pilgrimage. This doubt was despite the many testimonies I heard in their favor, not only from people I know but from official sources; for example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that they are “very special occasions for renewal in prayer,” and Saint John Paul II said they “have always been a gift of grace.”

All of which sounds wonderful, but then there’s Saint John of the Cross: “When a great multitude is making a pilgrimage, I should never advise him to do so, for as a rule people return on these occasions in a state of greater distraction than when they went.”

The first pilgrimage I went on made me wish I’d heeded St. John’s advice – it was 10 days of too many hours on the bus, rushed tours of churches, and zero spiritual experiences. The fact that I was in work mode the entire time might have had something to do with that last bit, but I returned home exhausted, sick and wondering why other people spent their vacation time in this way.

Fast forward six years, and there I was again on pilgrimage, this time to Italy. Why, after my first experience, I even contemplated going I don’t know; I blame it on Pope Francis, who said the 2016 Extraordinary Year of Mercy was a “favorable time to heal wounds.”

The notion of being healed was attractive: Among other difficulties in my life at that time, two of my family members had recently died, and society’s shrug in reaction to the murders of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church brought me to despair. That made the opportunity to experience “the love of God who consoles, pardons and instills hope,” as Pope Francis promised everyone who walked through a Holy Door in that Jubilee Year, very appealing.

The itinerary for the Italian pilgrimage also was enticing; it included several days in Rome itself, then at least half a day at the other sites, compared to the few hours that had been allotted on my first pilgrimage. Last but not least was what I can only describe as the prompting of the Holy Spirit, a little whisper that kept coming to mind over the weeks between the first awareness of the pilgrimage until the day I finally signed up.

The trip started on an inauspicious note. The flight from Salt Lake City to New York was delayed because of a mechanical problem, so we got to Rome a day late and missed the tour of the catacombs, which had me grumbling to myself about wasting good money and vacation days on what was sure to be a trip just as frustrating as the first.

But then, oh, then! We passed through the holy door of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, and as I touched the metal I was overwhelmed by the feeling that Jesus was taking on all the concerns that burdened my soul.

Relieved of my worries, I asked God every day of the trip to open my soul to him, and those moments came: a prayer by St. Francis that put into words the inchoate feelings I was trying to express, a sense of peace that refused to be shaken by the inevitable travel inconveniences, flashes of spiritual insight.

All that might be attributed to the location, which is one of the holiest lands in the world, but I had similar experiences here in Utah when I traveled to the 12 local churches designated as pilgrimage sites in 2013, and to the three local churches selected as pilgrimage sites for the Year of Saint Joseph in 2021. True, they didn’t happen on every trip, but often enough for me to be able to recommend, in good faith, that you go and experience for yourself the gift of grace a pilgrimage can bring.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. Reach her at marie@icatholic.org.