A pilgrimage is a time of prayer and to witness the miraculous signposts God has left for our return to Him. Ask God to bless you with a heart that will be receptive to the treasure chest of graces He desires to shower upon your pilgrimage. The success of your spiritual journey will depend upon your openness, faith, flexibility, and love.
Places Of Pilgrimage:
There are many places of Pilgrimage some in exotic places and others in not so exotic places. Lourdes in France is a place of pilgrimage and in this place many things have happened such as miracles and sightings of the Virgin Mary.
Also it is possible to have a pilgrimage in a place with a lot of people such as a concert or festival.
Mecca
For the Muslims, Mecca in Saudi Arabia is their place of Pilgrimage they call there pilgrimage a Hajj. They believe that in there life time they must go on a hajj at least once. They also believe that if they die whilst on a hajj in Mecca that is the ultimate belief that they will go straight to heaven.
Lourdes
Lourdes is a small town situated in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Although the town has just 17000 inhabitants, 5 million visitors go there each year. In the hotel trade, Lourdes is second only to Paris in importance. There are several narrow streets leading down to the Grotto. These are full of souvenir shops and although these at first seem tacky and out of character, they soon become an integral part of the visit to Lourdes. As in most French towns there are numerous cafes and bars, which are open to all ages. The cafe we visited most was the Terrase, where part of the bar was outside virtuall overhanging the river Gave. Quite a number of the inhabitants of Lourdes are Basques.
The site of the Sanctuary is open all year round. It can be visited in complete peace and quiet from November to March far from the crowds, or during the period of pilgrimage. I thought that it might be useful to include a bit about of Bernadette:
Bernadette Soubirous was born on Monday January 7th 1844, the first child of Francois and Louise. She was baptised in the parish church of Lourdes. When Bernadette was only a few months old, her mother had an accident and could not nurse her. At this time it was usual to breast-feed babies for at least two years. So Bernadette went to live with her foster mother in Bartres. She had six brothers and two sisters, five of the brothers died before they were ten. Her father was a miller. He ran the Boly Mill, but tended to give the product away to the poor instead of selling it, eventually the family were reduced to poverty and had to move into the cachet.
There are many more places in which a pilgrimage can take place concerts are like a pilgrimage but still different but in essence a pilgrimage is a gathering of like minded people to celebrate a cause or figure e.g. God. A pilgrimage can take place where ever when ever.
