PILGRIMAGES BY SPIRITUAL PURPOSE
What are you
seeking?
A pilgrimage begins with a reason. Sometimes it has a name: the Eucharist, Our Lady, a saint, a son, a grief, a question about what comes next.
Start there. Each pilgrimage below gathers the devotions, saints, places and questions that belong to it, and shows which journeys serve it.
If you already know where you want to go, the Classic Pilgrimages begin with the place.
WHAT IS DRAWING YOU?
Begin with what draws you.
Christ, the Eucharist and His mercy
To be near the Lord: at Mass, in adoration, before His Heart.
- Eucharistic PilgrimageA Eucharistic pilgrimage is a journey ordered to Jesus Christ truly present in the Eucharist: to the Mass, to adoration, and to the places where the Church's faith in that presence has been prayed, defended and handed on.
- Divine Mercy PilgrimageA Divine Mercy pilgrimage is for learning to trust Jesus: going to the places where the message of His mercy was entrusted to St. Faustina, and receiving that mercy where the Church actually gives it, in Confession and the Eucharist.
- Sacred Heart PilgrimageA Sacred Heart pilgrimage is a journey to the places where the Church learned to speak of Christ's love as a heart, made in order to receive that love and to return it.
- Mercy & Forgiveness PilgrimageA pilgrimage made to receive God's forgiveness in the sacrament of Confession and to find the grace to forgive, or be reconciled with, someone else.
- Holy Grail & Catholic Spain PilgrimageA pilgrimage across eastern Spain to the Holy Chalice of Valencia, which tradition identifies with the cup of the Last Supper, by way of Barcelona, Our Lady of Montserrat and Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza.
Our Lady
To go with Mary to her Son.
- Marian PilgrimageA Marian pilgrimage is a journey to the places where the Church honors the Mother of God, made in order to be led by her to her Son.
- Our Lady / Rosary PilgrimageA Rosary pilgrimage is a journey to the places where the Church learned to pray the Rosary, made in order to contemplate the life of Jesus Christ with His Mother and to bring that prayer home.
Healing and hope
To pray for healing, for yourself or for someone you love.
- Healing PilgrimageA healing pilgrimage is a journey made to place illness, grief or an old wound before Jesus Christ, asking for healing and leaving the answer to Him.
- Miracles PilgrimageA pilgrimage to the places of Christ's signs and of the Church's most carefully examined miracles, made to strengthen faith in Him and told with honesty about what the Church has and has not judged.
- Saints of the Impossible PilgrimageA pilgrimage for the intention that looks hopeless: you carry it to the shrines of St. Rita of Cascia and St. Jude, ask them to pray with you, and place it in the hands of Christ, to whom all things are possible.
Conversion and coming home
To turn back, to begin again, or to come and see.
- Conversion PilgrimageA conversion pilgrimage is a journey made to turn, or turn again, toward Jesus Christ, in the places where Paul, Augustine, Francis and Ignatius did the same.
- Penitential PilgrimageA pilgrimage made as an act of penance: a journey that costs you something, taken up after Christ's forgiveness and because of it, to repair what sin has damaged and to turn your life back toward God.
- Catholic Curious PilgrimageA Catholic pilgrimage made as an honest guest: a way for someone who is not Catholic, or not sure, to see the Catholic faith where it is lived and prayed, with every practice explained plainly and no pressure to become anything.
- Return to the Faith PilgrimageA pilgrimage for the baptized Catholic who has been away, for years or for decades, and wants to begin again with Jesus Christ and His Church without having to explain the gap first.
The saints
To walk where one of them walked.
- St. John Paul II PilgrimageA pilgrimage through the places that formed Karol Wojtyła and to the tomb where he rests, made in order to learn from a saint of our own time how to open one's life to Jesus Christ without fear.
- St. Francis / Franciscan PilgrimageA Franciscan pilgrimage follows St. Francis and St. Clare through the places where they met Christ, so that the pilgrim can learn from them how to live the Gospel simply, joyfully and inside the Church.
- St. Benedict / Monastic PilgrimageA Benedictine pilgrimage goes to the places where St. Benedict sought God and to the monasteries that still live by his Rule, so that a pilgrim can learn an ordered life of prayer, work and hospitality centered on Christ.
- Catholic Martyrs PilgrimageA martyrs pilgrimage takes you to the places where Christians gave their lives for Christ, so that their witness can strengthen your own fidelity to Him.
- American Martyr Pilgrimage: Blessed Stanley RotherA pilgrimage to the Guatemalan parish where Blessed Stanley Rother, a priest from Oklahoma, stayed with his people and was killed, to ask for the grace to stay faithful where God has placed you.
- Relics & Saints PilgrimageA relics and saints pilgrimage takes you to the tombs and relics of the Church's holy men and women, to honor what God did in them, to ask their prayers, and to learn from them how to follow Christ.
- Military & Warrior Saints PilgrimageA pilgrimage for those who serve, those who have served, and those who love them, made in the company of saints who knew duty, danger and conscience, and who laid all of it at the feet of Christ.
The Apostles and the story of the Church
To stand where the faith was handed on.
- Early Church / Apostles PilgrimageA pilgrimage to the places where the Apostles lived, preached, died and are venerated, made to renew faith in Jesus Christ at the point where the Church first received it.
- St. Paul PilgrimageA St. Paul pilgrimage follows the Apostle through Greece, from his landing at Neapolis to Corinth, with Acts and his letters open in the cities they were written for, asking the Christ who stopped him, sent him and sustained him to do the same in you.
- St. Peter & the Papacy PilgrimageA pilgrimage to the Apostle Peter and to his successor, made to profess the faith Peter professed, to pray at his tomb, and to pray for the Pope and the unity of the Church.
- Church Fathers PilgrimageA Church Fathers pilgrimage is for praying where the first great teachers of the faith lived, preached and are buried, so that the faith you profess is received as something handed down from the Apostles.
- Catholic Europe PilgrimageA pilgrimage through the cathedrals, monasteries, schools and saints' tombs of Europe, made to pray where the faith shaped a continent and to meet the Christ whom all of it was built to serve.
- Catholic History PilgrimageA pilgrimage through the places where the Church's two thousand years were lived and decided, made to see the whole story honestly and to trust the Lord who has kept His Church through it.
Prayer, silence and the road
To be quiet, or to walk.
- Camino / Walking PilgrimageA walking pilgrimage is for the person who wants to pray with the whole body: to go on foot, over days, to a holy place, and to let the road itself become the prayer that ends at an altar.
- Silence & Contemplation PilgrimageA pilgrimage made at the pace of prayer: fewer places, longer stays and protected quiet, in the places where the Church learned to be still before God.
Vocation and state of life
To ask what God is asking of you, and of your family.
- Vocation & Discernment PilgrimageA pilgrimage made to listen for God's call, whether to marriage, priesthood, consecrated life or a major decision, in the places where saints heard and answered theirs.
- Marriage & Family PilgrimageA marriage and family pilgrimage is a journey a couple or a household makes together to the places where Christ blessed marriage and where holy families lived, to give thanks, to ask for help, and to place their home again in His hands.
- Father & Son / Men's PilgrimageA pilgrimage for men, and for fathers and sons of any age, to ask Christ for the strength to be faithful as sons, brothers, husbands, fathers and friends.
- Women's PilgrimageA women's pilgrimage is a journey women make together to the places of the Church's holy women, to pray, receive the sacraments and follow Christ as the women of the Gospel did.
- Catholic Educators PilgrimageA pilgrimage for those who teach in the Church's name, made to sit again at the feet of Christ the Teacher and to pray where the Church's great teaching saints lived, taught and are buried.
- Pro-Life PilgrimageA pilgrimage of prayer for human life at its most fragile, for unborn children and their mothers and fathers, for families and for anyone grieving a child, made in Mexico before Our Lady of Guadalupe, to whom St. John Paul II entrusted the cause of life.
The Church’s year
To keep a season where it is kept most fully.
- Holy Week / Easter PilgrimageA pilgrimage made to keep the Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ with the Church, in the liturgy first, in a place that helps you stay with Him through the whole week.
- Advent & Christmas PilgrimageA pilgrimage made in Advent to Cologne, where the Magi have been honoured for more than eight centuries, to seek Christ as they did and to prepare for his coming.
Priests and seminarians
For men ordained, or preparing to be.
- Priests' Pilgrimage / Clergy RetreatA pilgrimage made by priests as priests: time away with brother priests, at the places where the priesthood was given and lived, to pray, rest, confess and return to their people renewed.
- Seminarian PilgrimageA pilgrimage made by men in priestly formation, with their brothers and formators, to the places where Christ called and sent His apostles and where holy priests lived what these men are preparing to become.
MANY WAYS IN · ONE JOURNEY
However you begin, you arrive at the same departure.
BY SPIRITUAL PURPOSEWhat are you seeking?You are here.CLASSIC PILGRIMAGESWhere do you want to go?Rome & Assisi, Fátima & Lourdes, Medjugorje & Croatia.BY PRIESTWho do you want to travel with?Find the pilgrimage your priest is leading.UPCOMING DEPARTURESWhen can you go?No dated departures are currently announced.LEAD A PILGRIMAGEWho will you bring?Gather a parish, a ministry, a family. No priest needed to begin.
However you find a departure, it is the same journey. Its dates, priest, price and availability are published in one place, on the departure itself.
BRING YOUR PEOPLE
Lead a pilgrimage with a purpose.
A parish, a men’s group, a school, a family: a group can begin with a spiritual purpose before it has a destination. You do not need a priest in place to begin.
Lead a pilgrimageNOT SURE WHAT TO CALL IT YET?
Start with a question instead. Discern your journey begins with what you are seeking in plainer words, and leads to the same places.