Deacon’s Corner - European Pilgrimage
By Deacon Mike Maynard
Last month, Denise and I were blessed to go on a pilgrimage to sacred sites in Portugal, Spain, and France. We traveled with Denise’s brother Brian, who is currently in formation for the diaconate in Memphis, Tennessee, and his wife Ann. Fr. Tomasz Wilk, pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Kelso, Missouri led the tour. Here are just some of the highlights of our trip.
We began our pilgrimage in Lisbon, Portugal with a tour visiting several sites in the city, including St. Anthony’s Church, built on the spot of his birth, and Cathedral La Se’, where the Baptism of St. Anthony took place.
From Lisbon, we traveled to the small town of Santarem and the Church of the Eucharistic Holy Miracle. In a beautiful Monstrance, the church enshrined a communion host that miraculously became present in flesh and blood. We each had the opportunity to look into the monstrance and have a brief moment of adoration.
We continued on to Fatima, where the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children in 1917. We participated in a candlelight procession, following the recitation of the Holy Rosary prayed in eight different languages.
From Fatima, we made our way to Santiago De Compostela, Spain, the famous pilgrimage site for those traveling the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James). We traveled next to the Sanctuary of Loyola and visited the home where Ignacio Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit religious order, was born.
From there we traveled to Lourdes, France, where we were greeted by nearly 50,000 French teenagers visiting the famous shrine for the week.
I received a special blessing at Lourdes to preach at Holy Mass, held in the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette, and where the spring of healing water emerges from the earth. This is something I will never forget!
All of the youth praying, singing, and playing instruments filled Lourdes with joyous energy. The nightly candlelight procession is an amazing sight, with tens of thousands of pilgrims, young and old processing around the grounds. As always, the procession was led by dozens using wheelchairs and others who came to this holy place in search of healing. The beautiful cathedral that stands above the grotto has inscriptions covering every wall with the hundreds of thousands of names of those who received miraculous healing from the waters of Lourdes.
Next we visited Montserrat where they celebrated the 800th anniversary of the monastery, high up in the mountains.
We ended our Pilgrimage in Barcelona, Spain where we went to visit Sagrada Familia, a cathedral designed by the famous architect Gaudi, under construction for nearly 150 years. Although the interior of the church is finished, there are still several spires that need to be completed.
These are just a few of the highlights of our pilgrimage. We saw many other things along the way. While on the bus we prayed the rosary together as well as the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and we attended Mass every day at very beautiful churches along the route.
We are blessed, having visited so many beautiful and holy places, but the greatest blessing is the shared experience with our 29 new friends, learning, laughing, and praying together.