Category: Pilgrimage
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Henry Maundrell on Pilgrims’ Tattoos
About the Author: Henry Maundrell was an academic and later ordained in the Church of England. In 1697 he found himself in Jerusalem, and kept a record in a diary which he published in England about five years later. As noted, the custom that pilgrims received a tattoo was alive and well even then, using…
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A Letter from Stephen, Count of Blois and Chartres, to His Wife, Adele
About the author: Stephen, count of Blois and Chartres (c. 1045-1102), was one of the richest and ablest among the princes who took part in the first crusade. According to legend he was the possessor of three hundred and sixty-five castles; in this letter we find him in temporary command of the whole Christian army.…
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William of Tyre on the Capture of the Holy City
William of Tyre (1130-1186) was one of the generations of Europeans who grew up in the new Kingdom of Jerusalem. William was born in Jerusalem and became a priest in the Church in the Holy Land, eventually rising to be Archbishop of Tyre, engaging in politics as an ambassador in his time. His “Chronicle of…
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An Impromptu Pilgrimage to Cyprus
About the Author: The Swiss Theologian Brother Felix Faber (1441-1502), often Felix Fabri, leaves us one of the most vivid and human accounts of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Brother Felix speaks of the horrors of life in the hold of a pilgrim ship, as well as the terrors of the sea, things like the…
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Excerpts from Catechism of the Catholic Church
About the text: As is the case in any pilgrimage, prayer and penance mark the life of a Christian. Just as it was not enough for the Israelites to pass through the Red Sea, but they needed a time of purification and penance in the desert, so do we need to do penance in addition…
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Pilgrimage: What the Modern Pilgrim Can Learn from Kristin Lavransdatter
About the author: Christina Debusschere is a wife, mother, and cradle Catholic who grew up on a farm in northeastern Alberta. She holds a B.A. in music and a B.Ed. from Concordia University of Edmonton. Between rosaries and sinks of dishes, Christina enjoys reading, making music, educating her children, rational dialogue with her husband, and…
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Inferno: Canto I
About the text: Dante Alighieri (c. 1265-1321) was the first writer extensively in an Italian dialect and is therefore considered the father of Italian literature and a precursor of the Italian Renaissance. Deeply indebted to his early contemporary Thomas Aquinas both philosophically and theologically, Dante’s Divine Comedy follows in the tradition of Vergil, who serves as his…
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My Convoluted Pilgrimage to the Catholic Church
About the author: Deborah Gyapong’s journalism career included 17 years at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where she spent 12 years as a television producer in news and current affairs. For 15 years, she covered national affairs and the Catholic Church for a network of Catholic newspapers across Canada. She retired in 2019. Her novel The Defilers won the…
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Paul Tells of His Conversion: Acts 22:1-21
About the text: St. Paul is well-known for his “Damascus moment,” the sudden revelation that he received from Christ that changed the trajectory of his life. Fittingly, his conversion took place on a journey and was accompanied by a movement from blindness to new life in Christ through baptism. Christ’s identification with the persecuted Church…
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Departure from Egypt: Exodus 12:29-51
About the text: The Church is on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land, the New Jerusalem. This is prefigured in the people of Israel as they left Egypt during the Exodus. Leaving the bondage of slavery and crossing through the water of the Red Sea, the people of Israel were gathered at Mount Sinai where…