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Pilgrimage is traditionally a journey to a holy place — a place where saints have walked, a place where God has met people and blessed them. People through the ages have journeyed with God on pilgrimage — to perform a penance, to ask for healing, to pray for places where there is war or national disaster, to pray for friends.
Pilgrimage is an opportunity to travel lightly, free of daily routines, to meet people, to make friends, to enjoy and celebrate God’s creation. An opportunity, too, in the travelling, the conversations and the silences to reflect on the journey of our lives and on our journey homewards to God.
For centuries the faithful of many religions have traveled by foot and by horseback and more recently in modern times on bicycle to religious sites and shrines around the world. For Christians, some of the most famous pilgrimage destinations are Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela. In North America there is Chimayo in New Mexico and tucked away in West Central Ohio is the Shrine of the Holy Relics in Maria Stein where the second largest collection of holy relics is preserved for pilgrims to visit. In fact, the arched entry to the Holy Relic chapel bears this inscription:
“Enter devoutly O Pilgrim for no place is holier than this on the New Continent.”
What is proposed with the Kreuzweg pilgrimage is a series of looping pilgrim cycling routes with stops at churches and shrines along the way for families and folks who have not the time or funds to walk or ride the great pilgrim routes of Europe, yet would like to experience the spirit of one of the great pilgrim routes The Camino of Santiago de Compostela. Like life itself this pilgrimage is not a race, but rather a journey.
Pilgrims on the famous Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain carry with them a small credential, much like a passport to record the stops along the pilgrimage. Each stop is marked by a stamp in the passport. The Kreuzweg has its own credential passport. A template may be downloaded and by printing each successive page back to back, cutting the pages across the middle and stapling them all together you will have your very own Pilgrim Credential. Plans are to place stamps in the back of each church.
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