Pilgrimages

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sklenko

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What about making pilgrmages in the US?Do you wander on foot?
I come from Slovakia and there is a good tradition in making pilgrimages on foot.For the past three years I have taken part in pilgrimages with another young people conducted by Jesuits.We were wandering all the week to reach a Marian pilgrim site dedicated to Virgin Mary.We would ask people for a bit of food and sometimes even for shelter(in sleeping bags).There are many exceptional experiences of generosity done by villagers and bypassers and of course what the Lord did for us.
I also know of several similar pilgrimages in Europe.Have you any similar experiences?
 
I am very new in the Catholic faith. I am going to RCIA (2nd class is tonight). I’ve been out of work for awhile. I only started reading Fulton Sheen late in June.

On August 26, I was taking the metro (Washington DC subway). And I saw some beautiful buildings in the distance. So I got off and went to the Crypt Church in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It wasn’t walking from home like you probably mean.

Now, if I get any more job interviews downtown (I had one on September 8 – Mary’s Birthday), I want to go to the Crypt Church in the Basilica (it is near the metro).
 
I have never had any such experiences, nor have I heard of anybody else making a pilgrimage on foot here in the U.S. Unfortunately, most of the people here are so suspicious that they probably would not give you food or shelter. Maybe good Catholic people, but I don’t know. Europe has so many wonderful traditions!
 
I know of only one person who walks to pilgrimages, and this man himself is a pilgrim (one who wonders as the Spirit leads him, owning very little save for the clothes on his back and the Bible and maybe a prayerbook). However, when my family went to a pilgrimage recently (it was either to our Shrine of Mariapovch in Ohio, or to the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which one, i cannot remember), a family was praised for their devotion and fervor by saying that “they walked to the Pilgrimage,” though it was plain the family came in a car (all in question were Greek Catholics).

In Christ,
Adam
 
In Doylestown, Pennsylvania (just north of Philadelphia) there is a shrine dedicated to Our lady of Czestochowa.

czestochowa.us/home.php

Numerous groups walk a pilgrimage from New York and New Jersey, as well as from Philadelphia.
 
We like to go to the Otpust at Mt. St. Macrina for a pilgrimage every year in Uniontown, PA. People travel from all over the US and a few other countries for it. Here are some pictures from last years. Not all the pictures are up from this years.

Since Sklenko is from Slovakia you might recognize some of the customs, so I started the pictures in the middle of the pages.
byzcath.org/ssb/otpust2003/photos/2003-Uniontown-Otpust-39.htm

Here are some from this year
byzcath.org/ssb/otpust2004/photos-1/2004-Uniontown-Otpust-first-photos-01.htm
 
A friend went on several prayer pilgrimages with her family here in the US when they were younger. Several years they walked across Florida, and I think one year they went across Kentucky. When they didn’t have previous arrangements with a parish, they would ask people for a place to sleep and some food to eat. The guy who helped run them is Jim ‘Butch’ Murphy:
In 1992, inspired by the American Bishops’ letter Heritage and Hope, Jim undertook a 4200 mile journey on foot across America, carrying a 6 ft. cross in an effort of prayer and evangelization. The journey took 18 months…and 14 pairs of shoes!
Click to expand...
veracruzcm.com/about.htm
 
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