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capecorps said:Just curious if anyone is actually doing a Roman Catholic Pilgrimage.
peregrinolincoln said:I found it interesting that I often had a hard time finding masses to attend along the Camino. The mass times were not readily available and many small villages did not have daily mass.
caminocalling said:I must say that during the time I did my pilgrimmage I did not meet many practicing Catholics or many who reported doing it for religious reasons, though many agreed they were seekers.
Finish This Sentence
If the United Church is serious about attracting more young people . . . we might start by asking why we want them
By Connie denBok
Many ministers dream about church pews filled with 20-somethings. But why do we want them there: Institutional survival? Support of property, program staff and pension plans? Bigger numbers to influence public policy?
I walked the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, through Portugal and Spain last spring intending to listen to the spiritual conversations of young adults. They were all within spitting distance of 30, some unemployed, some prosperous professionals. Many worked multiple jobs.
My first surprise came from a young American disgusted with the church he knew at home. “It’s not like it used to be a long time ago. I wish there was still a church like that,” he said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like it was when there were saints who lived with nothing and didn’t hurt anyone.”
The longing for some mythical age of the saints was a theme I heard repeated, so I asked a leading question of one young Portuguese man denouncing the commercial enterprise at the shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, a centre of Portuguese pride and piety. “What bothers you the most?” I prompted him.
He answered, “Fátima is only for Catholics and for Portuguese, but the Way of St. James is for everyone. James is more ancient.” And then the penny dropped for me. I had stayed overnight in the town of Fátima myself and found a perplexing mixture of Catholicism and Portuguese folk religion. Shops hawked waxen effigies of body parts to burn in a giant grill for prayer.
“Is it like when you copy a key, and make a copy of a copy of a copy until it doesn’t open the door for you anymore?” I asked. “Is your problem with Fátima that it is a copy of a copy of a copy of the faith of Jesus, and it doesn’t open the door to God for you?” He agreed emphatically.
The man began to share a story with another theme that I heard often along the road. He was having spiritual experiences that sounded as if they were lifted from the writings of Christian mystics. He told me a grey mist came over his vision, like a fog, and for a time he lost himself in closeness to God.
I later met a young Dutchman who said he was walking earlier in the day and, filled with such joy, he began to sing for hours in words of a language he did not know. He felt unspeakably close to God — a phenomenon experienced by St. Francis of Assisi and modern Pentecostals.
I also overheard a young Canadian leaving mass at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, the great Cathedral of Santiago that is the highlight of the pilgrimage route. He remarked, “All I feel is cold and hungry, just like the rest of my trip — and now I remember why I stopped going to church.”
If the United Church is serious about attracting more young people, we will release our controlling grip on the church we love and allow a new generation to rebuild a copy closer to Jesus. We will recognize that the spirit of God is surprising young people on their journeys while the institution of church is distracted by the lesser business of budgets, agendas and our interminable obsession with issues — and that youth who come to church seeking an experience of God sometimes leave deeply disappointed.
In secular Europe, there is a powerful spiritual itch — can Canada be so different? If the United Church is serious about attracting young people, we will recognize that the main attraction is a more ancient way.
lizlane said:Jeff, google "Year of Faith."
Hola and welcome.tomandlauren said:I am new to this forum. I was blessed to walk for 4 days (unexpectedly) last fall. I fell in love. I'm planning to return next fall.
Thank you Caminocalling! I'm sure I will profit from all the 'practical' advice that I will glean here but your heart felt words have touched me. For the very short time that I was blessed to walk, I spent much time in prayer and memorizing passages of scripture. I met many people and loved listening to their reasons for walking. I look forward to spending 40 days this time and I look forward to hearing many more pilgrims' stories, everyone seems to have a unique reason to be in the Camino.
Buen Camino
It makes me wonder why God has not started a page on Facebook...The Vatican has made it official: Pope Benedict XVI will grace Twitter.
He will start tweeting on Dec. 12, which is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
As you'll recall, we initially reported this last month. The 85-year-old Benedict first tweeted from a Vatican account last year but the handle @Pope2YouVatican didn't take off.
The new handle is @pontifex. And you can even ask questions about faith using the hashtag #AskPontifex. The Vatican staff will decide which questions the pope will answer next week in a live tweeting event at the end of his weekly audience.
The pope's main account will be in English, but there will be accounts in other major languages that translate his tweets.
The Pope joins other religious leaders on Twitter including the Dalai Lama (@dalailama) and Rick Warren (@rickwarren). And religious content "punches above its weight," with high levels of engagement, Twitter says.
Here are the stats:
- 90% of head pastors of top 10 mega-churches in the U.S. are on Twitter.
- 99% of the largest 77 religious organizations in the U.S. are on Twitter.
- 93% of the top 150 religious organization in the U.S. are on Twitter.
I am puzzled. What is a 'Roman Catholic Pilgrimage'? How is it different to any other pilgrimage?
Perhaps the passage of time since I lapsed as a practising Catholic has dulled my memory, but I cannot recall any Catholic teaching on the matter of pilgrimage or how one should be undertaken. Is there something in Catholic theology or canon law that distinguishes how a Catholic might undertake a pilgrimage for it to be regarded as a 'Roman Catholic Pilgrimage'?
The only other explanation that comes readily to mind is that the term provides a distinction between sect specific Christian pilgrimage sites, or perhaps between Christian sites and those of other religions. However, the context of the question does not support this interpretation. Everyone doing a pilgrimage to SDC would be doing a 'Roman Catholic Pilgrimage', and the question would then be meaningless.
Implicit in some responses is the notion that it means to walk as a Catholic (even a lapsed Catholic). This line of thinking would allow the Camino de Santiago to be an Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist or Shinto pilgrimage depending upon the religious faith of the person walking, which clearly it is not.
Is there some other explanation that I haven't found? Can someone explain what a 'Roman Catholic Piligrimage' is that makes it different?
That's why they're called "beliefs".I cannot believe ......, nor in any other religious doctrines.
However, I found the Cathedral of SdC an absolutely adequate venue to celebrate the transition from one Camino to another in style, thanks to the RC church. I deeply appreciated their undivided, non-partisan hospitality granted to me non-believer.
Tincatinker, you meant of course (Friedrich) Nietzsche's "Human, all too human" (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches). Excellent tip to get the old book from the shelf and read what those far ahead of us have thought, thank you.Perhaps a reference to Neitche's "Human, all to human" containing, amongst many other challenges to conventional philosophy, his attempt to challenge the validity of "Christian" morality as presented by theologians and the churches and to suggest that the concept of a deity was an attempt to avoid moral responsibility.
We can blame the gods, or shame ourselves, never the contrary.
...Nietzsche's "Human, all too human" (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches). Excellent tip to get the old book from the shelf and read what those far ahead of us have thought, thank you.
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