The Pilgrim’s Journey

As the Solemnity of the Assumption draws near each August, something stirs in Catholic hearts. We turn instinctively toward our Blessed Mother—and many priests begin to wonder whether the time has come to lead a Marian pilgrimage of their own. To bring a parish to

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people set out across northern Spain on foot, following a thin line of yellow arrows and scallop shells toward a single cathedral in Galicia. Some are hikers. Some are tourists collecting a story. And some are pilgrims. The path

Every July 25, the great square before the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela fills with pilgrims who have walked for days, weeks, or even months to reach the tomb of the Apostle James. Some arrive limping. Many arrive weeping. None arrive unchanged. The Feast of

On the last free night of his life, Jesus did not look for a quiet room. He went outside the city wall, crossed the Kidron Valley, and climbed a little way up the Mount of Olives to a grove where olives were crushed for their

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth day, it happens. A pilgrim who arrived radiant with anticipation grows quiet. Another stands before the empty tomb and feels nothing at all, then feels ashamed for feeling nothing. A third weeps without warning at Gethsemane over a grief

On the evening of June 24, 1981, six young people on a rocky hillside in what was then communist Yugoslavia saw a woman holding a child, and ran. The next day they climbed back up. That second day—June 25—is the one Medjugorje keeps as its