The word “pilgrim” comes from the Latin “peregrinus,” meaning “foreigner” or “stranger,” and in the deepest sense, that is what all Christians are: a people whose home is not in this world, but the Heavenly Jerusalem, toward which our lives move us. As Saint Paul says: Our homeland is in heaven…But in that journey, we often make smaller journeys, or “pilgrimages”–that is journeys made to sacred places. People make pilgrimage for various reasons: for the purpose of veneration, to ask help from or thank God and His Saints, to fulfull a vow, or make pennance.
The Hebrews were commanded by God to make a pilgrimage to the Temple:
Three times a year shall all your males appear before the Lord your God in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.
–Deuteronomy 16:16-17
On their way, they would sing their Pilgrim Songs, Psalms 118-132.
We still have sacred spaces and pilgrimages to them, like our Old Covenant ancestors, but with this difference: we are not bound to journey. The Old Covenant is fulfilled, and we are not Muslims for whom pilgrimage (hajj) is considered a sacred duty. Instead, we go on pilgrimage to call to mind the goodness of the Lord and the enterprises of faith of our forebears in the Faith, and for the purposes of leaving behind the usual pattern of our daily lives to follow Christ.
