Summer European Pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year of Mercy (by Ms. Carolyn Leatherman)

Having lived in Denver, Colorado for the past three years while in graduate school, I fell in love with the mountains. If you’ve ever been to Colorado in the summertime, you may know that a popular thing to do is to hike the “14ers”—the mountain peaks above 14,000 feet in altitude. On August 15, 2014, with a small group of friends and the priest chaplain of our graduate school, I hiked a 14er named Longs Peak. Since it’s such a long hike, we hit the trail head at 1:00am and returned to the car nearly 16 hours later. When you hike through the night by only the light of a full moon, see the breathtaking sunrise over the Rocky Mountains, and hike all throughout the day as the sun takes its course across the sky, you have some time to reflect. I remember one thing that struck me on that hike: how our close group of friends spent all day together—traversing challenging yet beautiful terrain—sometimes hiking with other people, for hours on end. Everyone hiking that mountain that day had a different story, a very unique and personal history that makes them who they are. And yet we all found ourselves together, walking toward a common goal: the summit. For me, that experience presented the chance to think about the spiritual life and how our lives here on earth mirror the microcosm of that day’s hike: our earthly lives are a journey—meant to be lived together in communion with others—toward the common goal of heaven, where we will live in God’s infinite love for all eternity. In other words, our earthly life is a pilgrimage toward our true and lasting home.
This idea of our earthly lives as pilgrimage is nothing I made up in that moment of being extremely deprived of oxygen at more than 14,000 feet above sea level; pilgrimage is a theme that the Church has been inviting Her children (us!) to practice for centuries in order to enter more deeply into the mystery of the depths of God’s love for us. The Second Vatican Council reflected on the image of pilgrimage in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, saying that our earthly lives are a “pilgrimage toward eternal happiness.” Furthermore, pilgrimages are central to our biblical faith. Abraham set out from his home to follow God and seek a new homeland. Moses led the Israelites through the desert toward the Promised Land. Jews came to Jerusalem three times a year to remember and celebrate the saving actions of God in the past history of Israel. Jesus Himself was a pilgrim to Jerusalem for these festivals on multiple occasions (e.g., John 7, John 10).

Throughout the history of the Church, pilgrimages have held a special place of practice during jubilee years. Right now, the Church is celebrating the Jubilee Year of Mercy, which began December 8, 2015 and closes on November 20, 2016. This Jubilee Year is a great opportunity for each of us to think more about, and strive to enter more deeply into, God’s mercy, which Pope Saint John Paul II described as “God’s greatest attribute.”  Saint Faustina, a Polish saint whose life story helped to spread the message of Divine Mercy in the early twentieth century, writes in her diary that we can “get to know God by contemplating His attributes.” Thus, the Jubilee Year of Mercy is an opportunity for each of us to renew our relationship with God and to rediscover mercy—the truth about God the Father’s unconditional and tender love for us.  In his letter on the Jubilee Year of Mercy (Misericordiae Vultus), Pope Francis says that mercy is “the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.”

All of this lies in the background for my summer plans: In July I am going with one of my best friends on a pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. First, we’ll stop in London to visit a few historic places that are central to the lives of some of the English Martyrs (such as Saint Thomas More). Then, we’ll fly to Poland to visit the Shrine of Divine Mercy, the hometown of Pope Saint John Paul II, and visit the Auschwitz concentration camp—the place where several saints died during World War II (such as Saint Maximillian Kolbe and Edith Stein). Finally, we’ll fly to Rome and visit more than a few special holy sites, including St. Peter’s where we will walk through the Holy Doors, which is a tradition of each Jubilee Year. God has worked many tiny miracles of grace in my heart and my life over the last 10 years, and I am going on this pilgrimage as a way of saying “thank you” to God for the ways that His mercy has touched my life.

The reality is that God’s tenderness and mercy are available to everyone. We just have to open our hearts and say “yes” to God’s invitation and look for opportunities to grow in our relationship with Him. To encounter God’s mercy, we don’t have to travel across the globe; we can make small weekly pilgrimages to the Adoration chapel (Jesus is always waiting out of love for us in the Eucharist) where we can stop and pray even for just five minutes. Furthermore, each diocese also has a few specially designated Holy Doors of Mercy through which pilgrims can walk to obtain the Jubilee Year plenary indulgence.

I’d love to carry any specific prayer intentions that you might have with me on my pilgrimage. If you’d like me to pray for you and your intentions in any particular way or at any particular place, please don’t hesitate to email me at cleatherman@smca.com. Regardless, I’ll be praying for everyone in the St. Michael’s community!
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