By Maria Wiering , OSV News
At the request of the Holy See, Catholic dioceses worldwide have designated local cathedrals, other churches and shrines as local pilgrimage sites during the 2025 Jubilee Year.
While none outside of Rome have designated Holy Doors – as cathedrals did for the 2015 Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy – these sites are still special places for prayer and a place where pilgrims may receive an indulgence if they meet certain requirements.
While around 30 million pilgrims are expected to visit Rome for the Jubilee Year, many people will be marking the Holy Year much closer to home.
But pilgrimage is a key part of the Jubilee Year for everyone, Pope Francis emphasised in Spes Non Confundit, the 2024 document announcing the Holy Year. The year’s theme – “Pilgrims of Hope” – also underscores this particular journey of faith.
“Pilgrimage is of course a fundamental element of every Jubilee event,” Pope Francis wrote. “Setting out on a journey is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life. A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life.”
Will Peterson, founder and president of Modern Catholic Pilgrim, suggested four ways Catholics can deepen their local pilgrimage experience, whether they are visiting a familiar church or someplace totally new.
– Discern the destination. While Catholics visiting local Jubilee-designated churches will not be preparing for a trip overseas, Peterson recommends they nonetheless prepare their hearts for pilgrimage, beginning by determining where they plan to go.
“To be a pilgrim is to know where you’re going and what your intentions are,” said Peterson, whose organisation helps parishes and dioceses organise local pilgrimages and also coordinated the four routes of the 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage across the US Modern Catholic Pilgrim has offices in St Paul, Minnesota, and San Diego.
If a diocese has designated several sites as potential Jubilee pilgrimage designations, “I would invite potential pilgrims to discern ‘where do I feel called?’ Is it the cathedral? Is it a local shrine? … and why?” Peterson said. “Because the intention and the destination obviously go hand in hand; you can kind of answer one before the other, but oftentimes there’s an interplay.”
– Set an intention. Peterson recommends that a pilgrim chooses a particular prayer intention for the journey.
“You have to name the intention for where you’re going,” he said. “So have that time – even if it’s just 10, 15 minutes as you’re looking at the diocesan list (of sacred sites designated for the Jubilee Year) – to reflect either individually or in conversation with a spouse, with children – getting them to name, ‘Hey, what are your intentions for this pilgrimage we’re going to make?”
In some cases, an intention might be inspired by the pilgrimage site. At a cathedral, a pilgrim might pray for the whole diocese and its ministries, Peterson said. For a saint’s shrine, a pilgrim might consider who the saint is and ask for his or her intercession for a particular cause close to the saint’s experience or patronage.
Peterson recommends choosing the intention in advance and writing it down to make it concrete, even carrying that note on the journey. If young children are making the pilgrimage, they could also draw a picture or bring a memento to remind them of their prayer.
Pilgrims can also ask others to share their intentions and commit to praying for them, too, to “create that larger connection” to the church, Peterson said.
Children especially, he said, “are going to really take pride in that, being given the responsibility of this is Grandma’s intention or this is Uncle Joey’s.”
– Pray. Prayer is an essential frame for the pilgrimage, even if pilgrims are traveling just a short distance.
“I’m always about Christ himself as a pilgrim,” Peterson said. “So could you pray Psalm 84 before you set out on your journey? Could you pray Psalm 122 when you get to your destination?”
A jubilee-related pilgrimage could also include special prayers written for the Holy Year, Peterson said.
Ideally, a pilgrimage would conclude with time for the pilgrim to go to confession and attend Mass with the local community, Peterson said. “At least have some time to offer up those intentions individually as a family,” he said.
– Get creative about getting there. While it might be customary to drive to the pilgrimage destination, Peterson encourages pilgrims to include walking if they can.
“Make the pilgrimage by plane, train or automobile; but I’d encourage people to consider how walking could be a part of it,” he said. “Could you walk to the local place? Could you drive 15 of the miles and walk the last two?”
Making a pilgrimage to a local site for the Jubilee Year is “a chance to engage with the sacred locally,” Peterson said, even if it is a church the pilgrim regularly visits.
In that case, walking instead of driving to a familiar church “kind of re-energises the fact that this is a special holy site,” he said. “So even if it’s your own parish church that you go to every Sunday – if you walk there and make a true pilgrimage, you seek the intercession of your patron saint in this Jubilee Year on a Saturday – I think that’s going to change how your family experiences the Sunday Mass. It’s going to become a bit more of, ‘Oh yeah, this is sacred ground.'”
Maria Wiering is senior writer for OSV News.