Pilgrimage sees life as a journey, as an adventure of discovery; our wide range of articles are united by a fascination with the wonder of the human journey, and a strong desire to more fully understand and celebrate that journey.
Undertaking a pilgrimage as an act of devotion, penance, or to seek supernatural aid, became a significant feature of the lives of Christians in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries.
In this piece of coursework I have been asked to look at pilgrimages and why people go on them and are they still important to society today. Also what religions are devoted to pilgrimages and were many people go on pilgrimages. During my coursework I will also relate to two places were people still go on pilgrimages and they will be Lourdes and Taize.
Kevin Smith Pg.2
In society today many people still go on pilgrimage I will use an example of Liverpool Archdiocese Youth Pilgrimage which I have been researching into. For many years young people have been a part of the Liverpool Archdiocese working along side Doctors, Nurses and Priests. Many Pilgrimages offer different things such as this one. Helping the Hospitals in the area the Pilgrimage is being held, Taking part in masses and services, Prayer of reconciliation and a day off and supervised free time.
These things which are on offer at this pilgrimage to Lourdes are common in other organized Youth Pilgrimages. This shows the Youth in the society of today that other people are not as well off as you and makes you feel good about yourself that you can help people and make them happy.
Lourdes in France is a very different kind of pilgrimage place from any of the places in the Holy Land. Lourdes only became a place of pilgrimage in the nineteenth century, and most of the pilgrims who go to Lourdes go for a very specific purpose, to seek healing.
On 11 February 1858 a fourteen year old girl named Bernadette Soubirous (later St Bernadette) was walking by a grotto in Lourdes when she had as what she believed to be a vision of the Virgin Mary. The apparition appeared to the girl, Bernadette Soubirous, and she was seen on more occasions and eventually revealed her identity as the Virgin Mary. She told Bernadette that people would be healed if they visited the spring of water which appeared miraculously out of the ground. The visions were declared authentic by the Roman Catholic Church. At the time of her visions a spring appeared in a cave and this is now a grotto where pilgrims can bathe in the waters.
Pilgrims gather in the grotto at Lourdes. Many Christians journey to Lourdes in search of healing. As a result of Bernadette’s visions and subsequent claims of healing, Lourdes has become a major centre for people seeking to be healed. Hundreds of thousands of people go on a pilgrimage there every year. Each evening during the pilgrimage session there is a huge candle-lit session though the town. Prayers, hymns and finally a Communion service are relayed over a loudspeaker so that everyone can join in as they march around the town. Those who can’t walk are pushed though the streets in wheelchairs by volunteer helpers.
Bathing and praying at the grotto are not the only activities undertaken at Lourdes. The Holy Rosary is an important form of prayer done by most pilgrims. It involves using Rosary Beads and special prayers in which Mary is asked to help the person to approach God and to speak to God on their belief. Many Christians felt that their own prayer is not good enough and that Mary or the saints can help them. This would especially be important for a person hoping for some kind of healing.
Kevin Smith Pg.3
In 1940 a young Swiss named Roger Schulze searched the Burgundy area in France for a place to build somewhere where people could go to in wartime to be spiritually strengthened and to be mentally refreshed. The Taize community was founded on the back of the Second World War.
After the war several other men joined Roger to help the needy and to begin their simple life as a “parable of communion” On palm Sunday of 1949, Seven Brothers in the small Taize community took monastic vows for life. Today there are over 80 brothers in the community from all regions and backgrounds of the world, with Roger Schulze, or Brother Roger as he is known now as their leader. They are scattered worldwide as signs of presence of Jesus among men and the bearers of joy. In the early 1050’s, Protestant bishops and also Roman Catholic bishops met in Taize in the first meeting of its kind held since the Reformation. Pope John XXIII befriended the small community and affectionately named it “The little springtime”
Today people from all over the world are attracted to Taize. When people go to Taize they go there either to have their faith strengthened and to get closer to God or for personal reasons. Also people visit places like Taize, to get closer to saints who have been there and give thanks for favours received and for companionship. The music of Taize is known all over the world and helps pilgrims who travel to Taize complete there journey.
I think that you don’t have to go on pilgrimages if you are a Christian because the world has been made a free place to live in and people have been given the right of freedom of speech. So you can say what you think and you don’t have to do what other people think you should do. People did go on pilgrimages a long time ago because it was very popular to do so. Today people still do, but not as much because after so long its popularity has gone down.
Also a long time ago people would go on pilgrimages because it was a very religious age, and because of things that would be happening at that time for instance in the Second World War a lot of people would go on pilgrimages because they would feel like they needed help off God or a Saint. I will use one example why people would go on pilgrimages one is recently the tragic destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, America. People who had family and friends in the buildings or on the planes at the time might feel the need to go to a spiritual place and ask God for help or to pray for their lost ones.
In today’s society people would go on pilgrimages because of devotion to a saint, curiosity, to seek healing or ask for favours, to give thanks for favours received, as a form of penance of a sin, in the hope of earning eternal life, to deepen there faith and for companionship.
Kevin Smith Pg.4
I think its up to each individual if they wish to go on pilgrimages but were as in Israel were you need to at least go on one pilgrimage in your life, they don’t have the right to unless they are unwell and can get someone to go on there pilgrimage for them. So some religions demands that their people have to go on pilgrimages, but some people don’t have to this is why I think it should be up to individual.
