"A pilgrimage is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith, although sometimes it can be a metaphorical journey into someone's own beliefs. Many religions attach spiritual importance to particular places: the place of birth or death of founders or saints, or to the place of their "calling" or spiritual awakening, or of their connection (visual or verbal) with the divine, to locations where miracles were performed or witnessed, or locations where a deity is said to live or be "housed," or any site that is seen to have special spiritual powers. Such sites may be commemorated with shrines or temples that devotees are encouraged to visit for their own spiritual benefit: to be healed or have questions answered or to achieve some other spiritual benefit."
This pilgrimage that we are now again undertaking, is done in the belief that the journey is more important than the destination. This time we will be walking from Lisbon to Fatima, starting on Tuesday 8 October.
Why are we doing it again? As said on the previous occasion:
To celebrate life!
To meet new people.
To recover from a hectic year.
We hope that this pilgrimage will be a spiritual journey into ourselves and into God. We hope to encounter God in a wonderful new way. If He dwells in us, why then go on a pilgrimage? It is in the crossing of boundaries, our own but also physical boundaries that God is experienced in new ways. So, we hope to return with new passion and new vigor. There is so much more to discover and experience.
"Ultreia, Suseia, Deus adjuva nos" Onwards, upwards, God with us!
