Is Making a Pilgrimage Worth the Effort?

I´ve visited many places of pilgrimage – the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, St. Peter´s in the Vatican, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Guadalupe in Mexico, St. Andrews and Iona in Scotland, Canterbury in England, Notre Dame and Chartres in France, to name but a few – but I´ve never actually been on a pilgrimage.

These visits were generally made for reasons of tourism which explains why I´ve also been to non-Catholic places of pilgrimage like the Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Pilgrimages in the past were genuinely spiritual and involved long arduous trips across foreign countries and could be dangerous.

Nowadays things are easier and mass transportation can whisk you off to your destination in a fraction of the time previous pilgrims were used to. You can take selfies to prove you were there and send them off in real time.

Despite this many pilgrims still choose to go on traditional pilgrimages, walking all or much of the route. Believe it or not but almost half a million pilgrims completed the Camino de Compostela last year to visit the tomb of St James in Galicia and received a certificate of completion.

A friend of mine has undertaken parts of this pilgrimage twice and has urged me to try it. My fear is not so much that I am no longer in such good physical shape but I have doubts about the spiritual value of such an effort.

Would I really get as much spiritual enlightenment after an exhhausting three-week hike across France and Spain to Santiago as I could get by just flying in one day, attending mass and flying out the next day?  

Much as I have been struck by the beauty and grandeur of some places – the monastery of São Jeronimo in Lisbon comes to mind -  this has not been transformed into any spiritual worth. Like most people I imagine I have felt the presence of the Holy Spirit more often in modest, often humble places.

In fact, the most spiritual experience I ever had was not brought about by the place itself -  a church in São Paulo in need of repair and painted a horrible shade of pink – but by the attitude of a young monk who clutched my hand during the Paz de Cristo greeting before Communion. He has forgotten me but his gesture brought me back to the Church after decades in the wilderness.   

The Church does not depend on artistic and architectural wealth but on human connections and how it brings us together – clergy or laymen.

This might sound a bit Protestant but I am a loyal Catholic and feel the grandeur of our Church and traditions is a bedrock of our faith. We need this inspiration that still creates pilgrims.

Having said all this, I intend going on a short pilgrimage soon to the Basilica at Aparecida in São Paulo state where the Virgin appeared to three fishermen in 1717. She is now Brazil´s patron saint. Every day at mass we sing the following short but beautiful tribute. Here is a link from the Basilica if you want to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dh0-6xyL48.

© John Brander Fitzpatrick 2025