Category Archives: Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy

The Church offers a brief conclusion to this long document. As we read these final few paragraphs, is there anything any of you readers have found in these long months of examining the interface between popular piety and liturgy? 288. … Continue reading →

Let’s wrap up our long discussion of shrines and pilgrimages. I will relay a family experience. My mother never switched to Catholicism when my siblings and I were baptized. But that didn’t prevent her from organizing pilgrimages for the parish, … Continue reading →

How to put this? … The pilgrim is not alone. Dimension of communion. The pilgrim who journeys to a shrine is in a communion of faith and charity not only with those who accompany him on the “sacred journey” (cf … Continue reading →

Apostolicity is a quality of the Church, not just of the clergy. By going on pilgrimage, the believer imitates Christ, joining with other believers, living and dead. This apostolicity is a natural consequence of the liturgical dimension: Apostolic dimension. The … Continue reading →

A liturgist appreciates this dimension: Worship dimension. Pilgrimage is essentially an act of worship: a pilgrim goes to a shrine to encounter God, to be in His presence, and to offer Him adoration in worship, and to open his heart … Continue reading →

In contrast to penance, there is joy, another human response. In addition to leaving our clutter at home, we can also set aside the things that drag us down, that prevent us from being more human, if not more Christ-like. … Continue reading →

God offers us mercy on the journey.  If we are wise, we will accept the offer. Penitential dimension. Pilgrimage is also a journey of conversion: in journeying towards a shrine the pilgrim moves from a realization of (her or) his own … Continue reading →

The Exodus event defined a people of God. God continues to lead us on, despite our resistance and revolt: The exodus event, Israel’s journey towards the promised land, is also reflected in the spirituality of pilgrimage: the pilgrim is well … Continue reading →

286. Despite change, pilgrimage has maintained the essential traits of its spirituality throughout the ages, down to our own time. And so our tour of pilgrimage history brings us to the present age. DPPL is a significantly long section, which … Continue reading →

The DPPL blames Protestants and the Enlightenment. But maybe Trent and other things Catholic were also part of the problem: 285. Pilgrimage declined in the modern period because of changed cultural circumstances, the events surrounding the protestant movement and also … Continue reading →

In order to travel, one must have some means. Perhaps personal wealth. Maybe a certain skill at begging. I know I can’t just run off to another continent, as much as I would like to. 284. The middles ages were … Continue reading →

The West has much for which to thank Egeria, that 4th century pilgrim. Jerusalem became a Destination. 283. In the Constantinian era, following the rediscovery of the places associated with the Passion of Our Lord and the of the relics … Continue reading →

Let’s take a brief look into ancient history: 282. With a few exceptions, pilgrimage did not form part of the cultic life of the Church for the first three centuries of her history: the Church feared contamination from the religious practices of … Continue reading →

God’s people were transformed from conducting a pilgrimage as a devotional exercise to being challenged to make pilgrimage as a way of life. If we are urged to imitate Christ, then we cannot deny we are urged to be pilgrims … Continue reading →

Pilgrimage was not a Christian invention. It has a Jewish tradition ranging across time, from the Pentateuch, through history, and inclusive of the Psalter: 280. In the Bible, pilgrimage, with its religious symbolism, goes back as far as that of … Continue reading →