By Father Anthony Infanti
When I entered the seminary in August 2003, I was invited to a meeting with fellow Diocese of Camden seminarians to hear Father Tom Barcelona present information about a pilgrimage to World Youth Day 2005 in Germany. The first question I asked myself: “What is a pilgrimage and what is World Youth Day?” Yes, I was not well-versed in either event, yet now I am!
Thus, my first pilgrimage was to Germany for World Youth Day with roughly 100 pilgrims (priests and laity) from the Diocese of Camden. This was the first time I traveled outside the United States to visit two major Marian pilgrimage sites: Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France.
Eighteen years later, this past October, I retraced my first pilgrimage steps to Fatima and Lourdes with 20 other pilgrims.
So what is a pilgrimage? A pilgrimage is an ancient way of deepening one’s spirituality by traveling to a place associated with a holy person, a holy site or a jubilee year. It can be a deeply moving and powerful spiritual encounter. Pilgrims are not tourists; pilgrims are people on a journey designed to take them outside their everyday lives and into an unfamiliar environment, somewhere they can encounter the extraordinary and thereby experience God in a new way. Some pilgrimages may be in coordination with a theme such as the Year for Priests (2009-2010), the Year of Mercy (2015-2016) or the Year of Saint Joseph (2020-2021).
A jubilee year has its roots in Judaism, when the ram’s horn, called a yobel, was used to proclaim the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). This celebration was announced each year, yet the announcement takes on a special tone during a jubilee year. In the beginning, the jubilee year was announced every 50 years to mark a special time for the people to re-establish a proper relationship with God, one another and all creation by forgiving debts and returning misappropriated lands, as well as a fallow period for fields.
Today when a jubilee year is proclaimed, the Holy Father issues a special letter called a “bull,” or public decree, to the universal Church to mark a special celebration of a momentous year for the faithful to pray. The first jubilee year, also known as a Holy Year, was proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII in the 1300s. Afterward, jubilee years were called every 100 years; Pope Clement VI later reduced them to every 50 years, and Pope Paul II reduced them to every 25 years.
Involvement in a jubilee year is an opportunity to receive an indulgence – a concrete manifestation of God’s mercy, which goes beyond and transforms the boundaries of human justice. The jubilee indulgence allows the faithful to free their hearts from the weight of sin because the reparation due for our sins is given freely and abundantly.
There are several ways to prepare to go on pilgrimage: praying about whether God is calling you to go to a location; choosing a particular saint, whose remains you may venerate while on pilgrimage, and allowing that saint to be your spiritual companion on the journey; bringing intentions from your parish community, youth group or family to pray for at the various holy sites; allowing yourself to be flexible for any changes or conditions that could challenge you during your pilgrimage. Most important, however, is to allow yourself to be open to God so He can speak to you and through you while on pilgrimage.
The next jubilee year has been proclaimed by Pope Francis from Dec. 24, 2024, to Dec. 24, 2025, with the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” Many priests from around the world and in our own Diocese will be working with various agencies to lead pilgrimages to Rome and to walk through the Holy Doors. Father Raymond Gormley (pastor of Saint Brendan the Navigator Parish in Avalon) and I are leading a pilgrimage together for anyone wishing to visit Rome along with several other pilgrimage sites in Italy for Holy Year 2025. To learn more about this pilgrimage, email Brother Paul O’Keeffe at pokeeffe@friars.us, call 781-272-3362 or email me at frinfanti@churchofstandrews.org.
Father Anthony Infanti is parochial vicar at Saint Andrew the Apostle Parish in Gibbsboro.
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