Three of our children have been to the Chartres Pilgrimage in France! It is a brisk (very) walk of 3 days (average of 25 miles per day). It is grueling.
There were some intense moments.
Jeanette had to be carried the last few hundred feet to the great Church of Chartres due to the bleeding of her feet!
Our Theresa was hospitalized because of the hypothermia she experienced (I believe she had contracted mono just before she left for the trip, too).
You’d think that this would have put a bit of a black cloud on their experience. Yet they look back on those trips with the fondest of memories. The pain was worth every bit of it! They cannot put into words the euphoria experienced reaching their destination, pushing their way to the finish line…singing and praying all the while!
Maria von Trapp tells us of the beauty of Pilgrimages and how they should hold a special place in the hearts of Catholics…..
Jeanette on her Chartres Pilgrimage with Father VanderPutten. This picture was taken after the Pilgrimage when the feet were healed and they were touring France and all the wonderful Catholic shrines, etc.
PILGRIMAGES
In Austria, the main part of our family celebration of the feasts of the Blessed Mother would be a pilgrimage to “Maria Plain.” If the weather permitted, we would walk from our home down to the river and along it, an hour and a half, to the foot of the mountain on which the three-hundred-year-old pilgrimage church stood at the edge of an old grove.
All the way we would say the rosary, one rosary after the other.
At the foot of the mountain we would light candles which we had brought along. With burning candles, we would say one more rosary, singing the pilgrimage hymn after each decade.
Then we would attend Holy Mass, receive Communion, place our candles on the big stand where many, many others were burning already.
After Mass and Communion we would kneel for some time in front of the picture of the Blessed Mother for a heart-to-heart talk. And then one felt wonderful–light-hearted, strengthened, happy.
Outside again we would invariably pause and take in the marvelous view across the ancient city with the high mountains in the background. But then one of the children would remind us that we had prayed now for a solid three hours on an empty stomach!
For just such people was the “Kirchenwirt,” the Church Inn, very conveniently located a few hundred feet below on the slope. On the way to the inn we passed stands where they sell postal cards, candles, and more or less trashy little souvenirs. We all bought a few postal cards which we would write while waiting for our breakfast.
When we found ourselves in America, this was one of the things we missed most–that there were no famous old pilgrimage churches dotting the landscape, no wayside shrines to which one could make a pilgrimage as we were used to doing.
To make pilgrimages to hallowed places is a custom as old as mankind. We find it in India, China, with the old Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. It comes from an urge that is deeply rooted in the human heart to worship God in holy places designated by Him.
For the Christian Rome and Jerusalem are the holiest places, and for two thousand years they have been what Mecca is to the Mohammedan: at least once in his lifetime he wants to go to the holy place!
Of course, these thoughts did not come to us as long as we were in
Austria. There we just took pilgrimages for granted, like so many other things.
But in America, when we started to wail and complain about the absence of hallowed shrines and our new American friends said, “What is all this talk about pilgrimages?” we found ourselves forced to do some thinking on the subject.
It was then that we discovered that a pilgrimage is not predominantly a Catholic custom. Archeology has shown that certain places seem to have been hallowed throughout the ages–different peoples thousands of years apart choosing the same spot for their worship, whether they were Etruscans, Romans, or Christians.
Everybody knows about Lourdes and Fatima, but in addition to these world-famous shrines of the Blessed Mother, there are thousands of other places scattered all over the Christian countries where exactly the same thing happened a soul in great distress prayed fervently to the Mother of God and, in a miraculous way, the plea was answered.
In such places of miracle, churches were erected later. This is the usual origin of the pilgrimage centers as we know them all over Austria.
From our home outside Salzburg there were as many as seven different ones which we could reach by bicycle or, in very grave necessity, on foot.
In the old country, a hike of several hours is essential to a true pilgrimage. It is a very moving thing to have taken part in a pilgrimage of a whole village.
The people would collect at one place (a custom that always reminds me of the “statio” of the daily Lenten Masses and of the time when the people of Rome used to meet in one place and walk in a solemn procession to the church where the day’s Mass was to be celebrated.
There the procession would form, led by an altar boy with a crucifix and guided usually by one of the parish priests. The people would alternately say a decade of the rosary and sing a hymn along the way until they reached a certain point in the vicinity of the shrine–usually at the foot of the hill or at a wayside cross if there was no hill. There they would all light their candles.
The last part of the pilgrimage would be a crescendo of prayer and song. The inside walls of the pilgrimage churches are usually crowded with votive pictures and crutches, wax models of hands, arms, legs–indicating the cures that have been obtained in this holy place–and it is written in stone and wood and scribbled in ink and pencil all over the walls: Mary has helped, Mary will help again.
This creates such an atmosphere of trust and confidence that merely to be there is soothing to the soul.
As many people have said, returning from a pilgrimage, “Even if I hadn’t received what I have asked for, the Blessed Mother has filled my heart with gratitude and happiness. Now I suffer gladly.” This is one of the main secrets of Lourdes.
Another origin of a place of pilgrimage is very often the vow somebody took in a moment of great danger: If the Blessed Mother helps me through this, I am going to build her a chapel or a church.
When the boys in our family went abroad as soldiers in the American Army, one of them took such a vow during the heat of battle: If he came home safely, he would erect a chapel to Mary, the Queen of Peace, on the highest point of our property.
He did return safely, and for several years now he has been working on his chapel. It is a labor of love.
Soon we hope to celebrate the blessing of the little sanctuary and then we can continue making our pilgrimages, either privately or in groups, lighting our candles at the foot of the hill, saying the rosary and singing hymns and obtaining graces through Mary who is called “Mediatrix of all Graces.”
As our concert tours took us all over this vast continent we learned that the new world also has its holy places.
“Good St. Anne” attracts the multitudes to Ste. Anne de Beaupre, St. Joseph to Montreal, the North American Martyrs have their shrine in Auresville, N.Y., the Indian martyr, Kateri Tekakwitha, has hers in Caughnawaga, outside Montreal.
The bodies of St. Rose and Blessed Martin de Porres attract pilgrims to Lima, Peru.
But most of all the Blessed Mother hallowed a spot of her own choice by making Guadalupe the Lourdes of the new world.
“In every bride the Church sees a potential Madonna, who will mother God’s little ones against her heart. In every bridegroom it sees another Joseph. And when together the young couple build their little home, the Church prays that it will become another Holy House of Nazareth.” -Fr. Daniel A. Lord, 1950’s
All 6 Maglets! (Magazine/Booklets)
Finer Femininity is a small publication compiled to inspire Catholic women in their vocations. It consists of uplifting articles from authors with traditional values, with many of them from priests, written over 50 years ago. These anecdotes are timeless but, with the fast-paced “progress “of today’s world, the pearls within the articles are rarely meditated upon. This little magazine offers Catholic womankind support and inspiration as they travel that oftentimes lonely trail….the narrow road to heaven. The thoughts within the pages will enlighten us to regard the frequently monotonous path of our “daily duties” as the beautiful road to sanctity. Feminine souls need this kind of information to continue to “fight the good fight” in a world that has opposing values and seldom offers any kind of support to these courageous women. Inside the pages you will find inspiration for your roles as single women, as wives and as mothers. In between the thought-provoking articles, the pages are sprinkled with pictures, quotes and maybe even a recipe or two…
Available here.
$5 Books for October at Tan! Stock up on Christmas Gifts!
Available here.
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support….
Thank you for this post! In two days, the Three Hearts Pilgrimage will be taking place in Eastern Oklahoma. A 35-mile walk, this pilgrimage is dedicated to the restoration of the traditional family. You can read about it here: https://www.threeheartspilgrimage.org/
If you are not attending and would like to join them with a pilgrimage in place, see this:
https://www.threeheartspilgrimage.org/pilgrimageinplace
May God bless and protect all those that will be on this pilgrimage.
The kids have been on this pilgrimage twice now. They would be going this year except that they will be in Rome. Hope all goes well! It’s a great pilgrimage!
And thank you for all the great details and links!
Is that near the Infant Jesus of Prague Shrine in Prague, Oklahoma? My mother had gone to visit that shrine several times.
There is St Anns shrine in Wisconsin too, with a beautiful path of the stations of the cross. 😇
Our parish, St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, has taken a parish pilgrimage to Mound City, Ks. to venerate one of the missions where St. Rose Philippine served the Potawatomi indian tribe which was moved there from the Great Lakes region of Michigan and Indiana by soldiers. Many died during that march, many died in the Fort where she served them in Mound City, teaching and caring for them. The indian people gave her the name that meant “one who prays always”.
Another shrine in America is the Shrine of St. Kateri Takakwitha in Fonda, New York. This is where she grew up, she was baptized in the spring there which still exists. Her parents died of small pox, Kateri suffered darkened vision and many scars from it when she was 4. She was taught by the Jesuit missionaries, and when her village was attacked by the French, her people moved to Montreal. That is where she died at 23 or 24. I was able to visit there in Fonda, NY with my son and his family. It is a very beautiful place.
Maybe one day Gower, Mo. where Sr. Wilhelmina’s incorrupt body now rests will also join the number of pilgrimage spots in America. There are several saints now, and blesseds in America, I think, too, of servant of God Fr. Kapaun of Wichita/Pilsen, Kansas, his cause is now in process for sainthood. We are blessed in our country, our state, with people who said “yes” to Our Lord, and lived lives that gave perfect Catholic example, and can help lead us to heaven, too.