Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage as Journey

The idea of journey is central to pilgrimage, even when the journey is only metaphorical (as in the idea of life as a pilgrimage). Leaving home and traveling to a different place is the heart of a pilgrimage journey. And while the site to which a pilgrim journeys is important, and generally the focus of ritual, the journey itself is often significant as well, ritually, psychologically, and socially.

Pilgrimage is one way of entering into a relationship or connection with the spiritual world and spiritual beings. These beings are most often saints or deities who play a role within a particular religious tradition or to whom the pilgrim wishes to make a request or prayer. But pilgrimage may also be to sites of the dead, such as European war graves, or to sites where mass death or tragedy has occurred, such as the site of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City. Or it may be to a place where the body or relic of a holy person is entombed or that person's spirit is believed to reside.

Reasons for Pilgrimage

While a pilgrimage may be undertaken in response to life difficulties or situations of crisis, it is often engaged in voluntarily and undertaken according to the needs and desires of individuals. There are exceptions to this, however. In medieval times, for example, pilgrimage to Rome or other holy places was sometimes imposed as a penance, and pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, enjoined on all devout Muslims as a journey to be made at least once in a lifetime, if possible. Drawing Muslims from around the world, it reflects both the global spread of Islam and the diaspora of specific Muslim populations.

While the often voluntary nature of pilgrimage means that it can usually be undertaken at any time, certain days are especially attractive for pilgrimage to particular places—days that may be related to specific events associated with the pilgrimage site or with the holy figure with whom the site is connected. Thus, the central Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca occurs during the 12th month of the Islamic calendar. Veterans who participate in the Run for the Wall, a motorcycle pilgrimage to the Vietnam Veterans memorial in Washington, D.C., time their arrival for Memorial Day weekend. And Greek Orthodox pilgrimage to the shrine of the Madonna of the Annunciation (Evangelistria) on the Aegean island of Tinos is heaviest on two major holy days dedicated to Mary—the Day of the Annunciation on March 25 and the Day of the Dormition (Assumption) on August 15.

...