A Christian Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage is a journey that that many Christians take. It is a
journey a physical place of importance; this could be somewhere, which
an important event in Christianity happened. However pilgrimage is
also a more inward, spiritual journey as well. It is an important part
of Christian life, and many Christians go on pilgrimage to various
places. At different centres of pilgrimage vastly different approaches
are taken on the role of pilgrimage.
Lourdes is a relatively recent pilgrimage site, which has a different
approach to the more traditional pilgrimage sites. Lourdes is an area
in which is devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and this is whom
visitors focus on. At Lourdes there was a significant apparition. A
girl called Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary and some pilgrims visit
Lourdes to also see the Virgin Mary or just feel her presence.
An approach to pilgrimage, which is very unique to Lourdes, is the
miracles that are claimed to happen. This is one of the reasons why
over 2 million pilgrims go to Lourdes every year. A focus at Lourdes
is a spring, which is believed to have miraculous healing powers as
the Virgin Mary blessed it. Many sick or disabled people come to
Lourdes hoping to be healed by God or in some way become empowered to
deal with their illness. To do this they visit a place in Lourdes
called the grotto, the site of the holy spring, and bathe themselves
in the water. Most other sites of pilgrimage do not offer anything
like healing but take a different approach.
A main feature of Lourdes is that people enjoy themselves. There are
many exciting processions and youth activities, which give Lourdes a
more child friendly approach to pilgrimage.
At Lourdes there are also masses in which many people go to. This
helps people pray as a real community. There are also active ways in
which people can praise Jesus and Mary. This is through symbolic
processions in which everyone has candles to represent God's Love and
Anne Boleyn in the spring of 1536 and the consolidation of power at court and in
Rituals are held as a very important part of any society, including ours. They go back to ancient times or can be as simple as maintaining one’s hygiene. Non-western societies have rituals that may seem very foreign to us, but they have been engrained in their communities and are essential to their social structure. This interpretation will focus on the Great Pilgrimage, a ritual performed by Quechuan communities. We will be looking specifically at a community in the area of Sonqo.
What is a Crusade? How did a Crusader crusade? What caused him to seek “holy war?” Is a Crusade a Holy War or a Pilgrimage? Did a crusader only leave to find his own economic benefits? What caused the success of the first crusaders? These are some of the many questions that laid before me when I started my research. The crusading movements are such widely debated among the modern historian that they leave many readers confused about what actually caused the crusades, and what a crusade actually entails. In the coming pages I hope to give my reader something to ponder, understand, and acknowledge about it’s origins, and eventually lead my reader into the first crusading movement. Thus, the argument I intend to make examines the events in previous centuries, and the culmination of political and moral changes, as well as economic ones that occurred before Urban’s call for crusade. We will explore Feudalism, it’s war-centric society and how this caused Urban (as well as some Popes and religious figures before him) to seek a peaceable solution that would ensure safety for the clergy, the peasant, and the non-violent. Furthermore, Pope Urban sought to continue Pope Gregory's (and Cluniac) reform to solidify Papal authority over Christendom, and respond to years of Muslim raids along the Mediterranean and upper Italian Coastlines that threatened Italian unity. In effect, the first crusading movement represented and embodied the European culture, society, and ideologies of the time.
In the film “Scott Pilgrim Vs the world” created by Edgar Wright, A very Important I
In the “Canterbury Tales”, Chaucer depicts each character of the pilgrimage using allegorical descriptions. The pilgrimage in itself can be seen as an allegory since it represents more than a physical journey but a journey of one’s true self. The flaws exposed in the characters are also seen as a reflection of their surroundings. Therefore, each character is used to exemplify the faults of medieval society. For example, the description of the Physician is a direct example of irony. Chaucer begins by describing the Physician in a flattering light.
The presence and function of pilgrimage in both the worlds New Age and Judeo-Christian religious landscape is incredibly important as it often provides individuals with an opportunity to exemplify and extended their spiritual beliefs and understandings and gives them a chance to create a meaningful, life changing and life affirming spiritual experience. New Age Pilgrimage in particular creates a chance for New Age adherents to explore the choices they made through encountering deep spiritual journeys and experiencing sacred energies through a range of different experiences. We will discuss the appeal of New Age pilgrimage with reference to two sites in particular, the vortex experience in Sedona, Arizona in the United States and the Ayahuasca rituals and journeys that occur all over the Amazon Rainforest in South America. These sites are worthy of looking at because they market two completely different spiritual experiences, but upon closer inspection seem to be important and appealing to the New Age community for similar reasons. The sites are similar because pilgrimages to these areas do not pertain to one strict site or one dogma of spiritual understanding; in fact they do the opposite by providing a large landscape in which individuals can create their own pilgrimage experience. Indeed it seems that the two most enticing factors about both these sites is the fact that they both feed and satisfy every individual’s desires and provide individuals with a chance to make sense of and answer the larger questions about life and the world that people struggle to answer. However both these sites also offer something that is unique to their pilgrimage alone, in Sedona that being the accessibility and ease of choice pertaining to practis...
If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friend, and never see them again… then you are ready for a walk. -Henry David Thoreau (Haberman 12)
... opinion, this Cathedral is beautiful and wonderful and definitely a place I could see people traveling too on a pilgrimage. I actually feel as though my trip up to Grace Cathedral was, in a way, a miniature pilgrimage. I am Christian, so this type of surrounding is very special and meaningful to me. The cathedral has many relics and beautiful stained glass windows and great pieces of artwork. I believe that this really could be a modern day pilgrimage destination, if it isn't already one. While this church does not claim to have relics, which if in their presence can heal you, as St. Gilles did from "The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela," it does hold many beautiful relics that are worthy of veneration. Grace Cathedral has so many wonderful things to offer anyone that people should feel blessed to be able to go there to be in the presence of the Lord.
Christian, the main character in Pilgrim’s Progress, started his journey as every real Christian should: considering Christ greater than anything he had. He left his family and friends, all of whom rejected him, in order to start following God. He knew that his relationship with God came first place and he acted on it. His actions demonstrated his faith. His actions proved that his faith was real. His family and friends not only represented the human relationships that a Christian must leave when he becomes a Christian, but also every other worldly thing that is important to a Christian.
The Spiritual and Moral Journeys in The Quest of the Holy Grail. The Quest of the Holy Grail is an exciting tale that follows the adventures of King Arthur's knights as they scour the countryside for the legendary Holy Grail. Throughout their journeys, the knights engage in many exciting jousts and sword fights with a variety of enemies. The author of The Quest of the Holy Grail intends for the story to be more than just entertainment: the knights' search for the Holy Grail is analogous to the pursuit of morality and spiritual chivalry, showing success through asceticism, confession, chastity, and faith.
The Wanderer: A struggle with Faith In the Anglo-Saxon poem, The Wanderer, the narrator describes a man who is having a religious struggle between his old pagan traditions and the new Christian Philosophy. Anglo-Saxons believed in fate, fame, and treasure; and that one could not easily change his life. The Christian Religion believed of an afterlife in Heaven or Hell, and where one would go depended on their actions during their human life. Since Christians did believe in an afterlife, they did not believe in pagan philosophy; instead they believed God was in control of everything, and things in their life happened for a reason. Following this concept, defeat and misfortune were easier to accept, because if one suffered a horrible life on Earth, he would be rewarded for his misery in the afterlife.
In some religions pilgrimage is not an important commitment for all believers, but in Islam it is essential. The word pilgrimage means to set out with a purpose or journey to a sacred world. The world is a world. For Muslims this sacred place is Mecca and the purpose is to follow in the footsteps and actions of the prophet Muhammad as he entered Mecca and to show complete submission to Allah. Unlike the minor pilgrimage to Mecca (Umrah), which can be performed.
Geoffrey Chaucer, in The Canterbury Tales, uses both a frame narrative and satire to describe the pilgrimage of thirty pilgrims. The purpose of Chaucer’s use of the frame narrative is to display to the reader the stories within. These pilgrims, as described in the outer frame of the work, embark on a great journey to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury, England. Chaucer created a character from most of the classes to ensure that his work has the characteristics of verisimilitude, yet excluded from the motley crew pilgrims of the highest and the lowest of the social ranks, royalty and serfs, respectively. The twenty-nine pilgrims, including Chaucer the Pilgrim, enter the journey, with Harry Bailly, their Host at the Tabard
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s writing, “The Canterbury Tales”, he writes of a pilgrimage and describes every character that is involved, some more in depth than others. Keep in mind that this writing is dated back in the 1300’s, so there is going to be some distinction between those he described on the pilgrimage compared to how one would describe people of today. If Chaucer did write about people today, three people he would most likely choose would be a teacher or professor, a professional athlete, and a song artist.
The history, significant religious places, and the genealogy of religion are some of the evidences that can substantiate the ownership of Jews in the holy city of Jerusalem over the Christians and Muslims.