“Adirondack Life” magazine covers Pilgrimage 2009

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Complete with great black and white photos, including the one below, the award-winning Adirondack Life magazine wrote up our spiritual journey through their part of the world. An excerpt follows, with the essay by Lisa Bramen and photographs by Jason Hupe also linked below.

pilgrimage for restoration
St. Isaac Jogues Brigade en route, September 2009

MOTORISTS slow at the sight of a long line of pedestrians—more than 270 of them—stretching single-file along the dirt shoulder of Route 9N south of Lake George. A few of the walkers, teenage girls, wave cheerfully at the passing cars, and the gesture is occasionally reciprocated, if with quizzical looks.

A long walk in the Adirondacks is a common enough endeavor. Even a 65-mile trek, like the one this group is undertaking, is barely notable—dozens of people hike the 133-mile Northville-Placid Trail each year—but most distance-walkers follow wooded trails, not two-lane highways.

Other details about this procession are bound to stoke the curiosity of passersby: Almost all of the females wear long skirts—hardly the usual hiking attire—and many cover their hair with lacy scarves. At the head of each group of 15 or so is a leader carrying a satin banner or flag proclaiming the name of the “brigade” it represents—Sainte Jeanne d’Arc, Our Lady of Fatima Scouts. Others hold up tall wooden crucifixes. If these hints don’t clue the drivers in to the fact that they are witnessing a religious pilgrimage, the smattering of nuns in habits and priests in black robes might clinch it.

The Pilgrimage for Restoration, organized by Pennsylvania-based National Coalition of Clergy and Laity, has brought hundreds of the faithful to the Adirondack Park each September since 1996 for four days of walking, prayer and fellowship. The route—from the village of Lake George to the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, at Auriesville, 40 miles west of Albany on the Mohawk River—commemorates the life and martyrdom of the saint Isaac Jogues, a 17th-century French Jesuit missionary who was captured, tortured and eventually murdered by the Mohawks, one of the five original nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Jogues is believed to have been the first European to see the heart of the Adirondacks.    Read more …

Press Release: 2010 Pilgrimage Theme Concerns Our Lady and the Conversion of America

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Gregory Lloyd, director of the Pilgrimage for Restoration, has announced the theme for the fifteenth annual pilgrimage, which takes place September 22 to 25, 2010. This year’s theme is “Restoration of True Devotion to Mary, Queen of Missionaries and the Reconquest of America.”

The Pilgrimage for Restoration begins at the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament (a.k.a., “Lake George”), New York, and ends at the Shrine of Our Lady of the North American Martyrs, in Auriesville, New York. Pilgrims walk, sing, and pray along the paths traversed by the North American Martyrs — venerating as they go the places these heroes of God sanctified by their blood witness to Christ and His Church. High Mass in the traditional Roman Rite (forma extraordinaria) is offered daily, and priests are available for confession and spiritual guidance throughout the pilgrimage. The journey terminates in a beautiful Solemn Mass offered at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs on Saturday, September 25.

Pilgrims can go the entire distance — seventy miles over four days — or come for the last day’s seven-mile walk, which starts at the Shrine of Blessed Kateri in Fonda, and terminates at Auriesville. Transportation for weary pilgrims is provided throughout, as are a safety escort and trained medical personnel. In addition, there is a “modified pilgrimage” for seniors and parents with young children. This lends a Catholic family atmosphere to the pilgrimage.

Explaining the significance of this year’s theme, Gregory Lloyd said, “In view of the recent unmistakable collapses of our own inventions, Catholics in America are daily becoming more acutely aware of the wisdom of St. Paul’s teaching in the letter to the Romans: ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’ The Jesuit and Native American missionaries and martyrs brought the Light of Faith to Huronia and other indigenous American Nations many moons ago. It is high time the new phase of evangelization called for by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI enlighten all Americans, not only those whose minds are eclipsed by life-long ignorance of Christ, but also many of the baptized.”

He concluded with a broad invitation to the Pilgrimage. “We invite all men of good will to pray with us to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, Son of God, to obtain from her Son the grace of conversion and Catholic Faith for all Americans; to obtain for the Church in North America victory in the struggle against the tyranny of relativism, Satan’s latest futile tactic; and, finally, to expel again the forces of darkness from our Lands, and to resurrect the culture from death.”

To register online, or to obtain more information, interested parties are referred to the web site of the National Coalition of Clergy and Laity: www.national-coalition.org/pilgrim/. Inquiries may be directed to the Pilgrimage Director, Gregory Lloyd at lloydg@national-coalition.org, or:

National Coalition of Clergy & Laity
621 Jordan Circle
Whitehall, PA 18052-7119

Tel. 610-435-2634

Video documentary of unique spiritual exercise

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Note: the documentary linked here previously suggested that the annual Pilgrimage for Restoration begins at the National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Shrine in Fonda and processes to Our Lady’s Shrine of the Martyrs in Auriesville.

In fact, the spiritual exercise begins at the Lac du Saint Sacrement (the “Lake of the Blessed Sacrament”), as St. Isaac Jogues named it, in present day Lake George Village, and ends approximately 75 miles later at Auriesville.

Since its inception the last day of Pilgrimage covers the roughly seven miles from Fonda to Auriesville.

Click here to order the official full length video of all four days of the unique spiritual exercise as recorded by volunteers of the Company of St. Rene Goupil in on Pilgrimage in 2003.

Prayer during the Pilgrimage

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Pilgrims of all ages walk in `brigades’ (groups of 15 to 35), under a patron saint. Brigades are formed by laymen who sing hymns, direct meditations, recite the Holy Rosary and other prayers. Pilgrims live according to the mandate of Our Lord and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost – friendship & prayer sustaining each pilgrim on his spiritual way.

Priests & religious lead and accompany the pilgrims along the way, hear confessions, give private spiritual counsel, teach.

The sacred liturgy of the 1962 Roman missal is prayed each day in accord with Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum. Glorious instrument of prayer, the traditional Roman liturgy stresses the universal character of the Church. Holy Mass in the forma extraordinaria is celebrated in a most solemn manner at the Auriesville Coliseum Church on Saturday.

Can’t travel to make pilgrimage? Pilgrims will remember you in prayer en route, and you can pray for them while making pilgrimage from your home or parish.

Click here to download the prayer request form, to learn how to obtain a plenary indulgence from your home, and/or to sponsor a pilgrim.

Click here for the webform to make the same request online.

Songs of Pilgrimage, and Free MP3s

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The Pilgrimage is a prayerful, musical event.  Hymns, songs, and a story of the Pilgrimage are available, all on the official Pilgrimage for Restoration recording — on CD and cassette.

A listing of the tracks of Songs of Pilgrimage can be found here.

Order the CD or audio tape here.

As soon as we are able to reconstruct the blog (after the hacking of November 16, 2010) selected tracks will once again be available as MP3s downloadable from this blogsite.