The Village of St Bernadette: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage

October 5, 2012 By 4 Comments
People wondered why there is no statue of Bernadette in the Grotto. But at Lourdes, we are all Bernadette.

"There was everything hostile to my peace---an incalculable crowd, an oppressive heat, dust, noise, weariness; there was the disappointment of the churches and the image; there was the sour unfamiliarity of the place and the experience; and yet I was neither troubled nor depressed nor irritated nor disappointed. . . . To leave Lourdes at the end was like leaving home." Msgr Robert Hugh Benson, a convert from Anglicanism, wrote these words in his memoir of a visit to Lourdes in 1908. I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Catholicism, Pilgrimage 2012, Saints' Lives and Legends Tagged With: , , , 4 Comments

Climb Ev’ry Mountain: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage

October 3, 2012 By 4 Comments
rock

An hour in the Pyrenees, and you suddenly understand the deep ties between geography and belief. And you get a clue about why we're always fighting over territory. Gerald O'Hara was partly right: "It's land, Katie Scarlett! . . . Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts." Of course it doesn't, really. But since Eden was foreclosed on, that's the story we tell ourselves. Pilgrimage 2012, Day 8: … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Catholicism, Pilgrimage 2012, Saints' Lives and Legends Tagged With: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Bilocation, Chocolate, and the Patron Saint of Pilgrims: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage

October 2, 2012 By 3 Comments
zaragoza

Pilgrim Pop Quiz: What's the oldest Christian pilgrimage shrine in Europe? Hint: It's associated with St James (Santiago, as they call him in Spain), but it's not the one from that movie with Charlie Sheen's dad. It's in Zaragoza, where the ancient and the thoroughly post-modern meet for tapas, and neither one blinks. Pilgrimage 2012, Day 7: Madrid to Zaragoza When you say Spain, Santiago, and pilgrimage, everybody thinks Compostela, the purported resting place of St James the Greater, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Catholicism, Pilgrimage 2012, Saints' Lives and Legends Tagged With: , , , , 3 Comments