Will you let yourself be drawn after Him?, as the ‘men in white’ might ask, were they to appear suddenly to you nowadays, as to the disciples back then: Read More
In the footsteps of Martyrs
Looks inviting, eh? Imagine: real life on pilgrimage just got even better.
New dates & days in 2011 mean you too can have ‘the time of your life’ over a ‘long weekend’, Friday through Sunday, instead of a whole week away as in years past.
That makes it lots easier for collegians, home-schoolers & high-schoolers, working families and just about everybody to participate.
Now 12.5 miles shorter and following a more direct route, it’s also easier than ever for pilgrims to join up the last day, just like most pilgrims do at our model and inspiration, the Paris-to-Chartres Pentecost Pilgrimage in France.
There’s something in the works for everybody.
The 16th annual Pilgrimage for Restoration is scheduled for 23-25 September 2011.
Songs of Pilgrimage and free MP3s
As you might have noticed — for example, from the video in yesterday’s post (below), 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 33 tracks of Songs of Pilgrimage can be found here.
Order the CD or cassette here.
Download the following … Read More
“Talitha cumi!” Mk. v:41
In your charity, please pray for another fellow pilgrim-family in need – The Rakuses of New Jersey, whose 6-year old darling Liz has a serious brain tumor. They were told it was beyond treatment. Nonetheless they are at St. Jude’s Hospital in Tennessee, where they are attempting therapy.
May Our most Merciful Lord Christ, risen from the dead, take this little girl by the hand and heal her as he gave new life to the little daughter of Jairus.
“And taking the maiden by the hand, he saith to her: Talitha cumi, which is, being interpreted: Damsel (I say to thee) arise.” Mark v:41, Luke viii:54 Read More
Kirk! How can you smile at a time like this?
To answer that headline question: probably because he has an old habit of laughing at his own suffering-self.
In your charity, please pray for the speedy & complete recovery of fellow pilgrim and founding co-organizer of the Pilgrimage, Mr. Kirk Kanzenbach of Athelstane, Wisconsin.
We are informed (thanks to fellow pilgrim, Mrs. Dennis Mitchell) that our faithful pilgrimage friend was injured on April 28 while cutting down a tree. According to an initial report, Kirk has suffered multiple injuries, including a fractured skull, spinal compression, and some paralysis of his right arm etc. Read More
A pilgrimage of vocations
Both Priests flanking His Excellency, Bishop Finn of Kansas City – St. Joseph, have made the Pilgrimage for Restoration as clerics. Two of the young Nuns made the Pilgrimage before taking the Veil.
To which state in the pilgrimage of life is God calling you? (Or your children? Or grandchildren?)
How to persevere, amidst so many trials, in the state to which God has already called you?
Why not make pilgrimage this autumn, and ask God yourself.
You can also ask His sacred Priests and other consecrated souls to teach you the art of listening … and of restoring your soul, by grace.
Then listen during the long periods of silence along the way. And rest.
To ask the pilgrims to pray for you by name, or to sponsor a pilgrim, click here.
Pilgrimage for Restoration, 2011 September 23 – 25. Come to restore. The rest will come.
What’s your ‘spiritual DNA’, pilgrim?
We’re glad you asked.
In these 358 words the attentive reader will come to know the spirit & mission of pilgrims for restoration.
What is the ‘spiritual DNA of the Thirteenth Apostle’, and why does it keep him ever linked to the First Among Them — and thus to Christ Himself among us? (Hint: Confer “videre Petrum”, Epistle to the Galatians i:18).
In your charity, remember fellow pilgrims
It is with deepest sympathy for the Sica Family that we ask all pilgrims to remember in prayer fellow-pilgrims Bob & his sons, Mrs. Sica and all the Family & friends who mourn the sudden loss of the Sica’s newborn infant daughter.
Mary Catherine Elizabeth was baptized and died only days later of unknown causes last month.
Surely the hope of eternal paradise for so pure a soul as the angels must be of great consolation to the parents and Family. We ask all pilgrims and men of good will to pray that God strengthen the Sicas in faith, and deal with them most mercifully during the present trial.
“And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.” (Rom. viii:28)
Those wishing to send a card of condolence may e-mail the Pilgrimage Director for the Sica’s postal address.
Dare miss an opportunity of a life – time … and time again?
Need a reminder to register? Wish to sponsor a needy pilgrim, or to be remembered by fellow pilgrims in prayer? Want to know what organizers are planning, and how it includes you?
Then keep abreast of Pilgrimage developments by signing up here for low volume email broadcasts.
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Exciting new development for Pilgrimage 2011
Life on pilgrimage just got better.
In response to years of requests from pilgrims young & old, the Pilgrimage to Auriesville offers an exciting new opportunity.
Mark your calendar.
The 16th annual Pilgrimage for Restoration is scheduled for 23-25 September 2011.
The new dates & days, Friday through Sunday, have the event now take place over a ‘long weekend’.
That will make it easier than ever for collegians, home-schoolers & high-schoolers, working families and just about everybody to participate.
The only change will be to the last day of pilgrimage, on the third day, this year a Sunday. Instead of turning west after lunch to the Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the pilgrimage will head due south, directly to the Shrine at Auriesville.
The turn will make the pilgrimage 12.5 miles shorter, and bring everyone to the final shrine destination a day earlier.
The new path eliminates the customary stop-over at the Kateri Shrine. But that will hardly mean a change in veneration to one of the Pilgrimage’s most beloved patronesses. Neither will it exclude newcomers from joining up the last day of pilgrimage.
Just the opposite. It will make the Pilgrimage for Restoration much more like the model and inspiration, the Paris-to-Chartres Pentecost Pilgrimage. And Blessed Kateri will receive due and even improved veneration already in planning.
The French counterpart is 62 miles long (100 kilometers according to their website.) Most pilgrims there join the last day, Pentecost Monday, at around lunch-time.
Organizers of the annual Pilgrimage for Restoration are already planning something similar for the last day, now a Sunday.
In fact, there’s something already in the works for everybody.
And check back soon for updates.
Pilgrimage of ‘reconstruction’
Welcome to the blog of the Pilgrimage for Restoration — or what’s left of it since hackers destroyed it and untold numbers of other blogs on StBlogs’ server November 16.
Reconstruction is almost complete.
Check back soon for updates, including an exciting announcement about next year’s pilgrimage.
Meanwhile, visit the main site for general information about the annual Pilgrimage for Restoration.
Pilgrims join Angels in praise of The Way
Along with the New York Catholic Chorale which has also sung the final Mass beautifully for years, the “Pilgrimage Choir” has often been a presence at the Pilgrimage for Restoration, providing the music for the weekday Masses and some years for final Liturgy Saturday.
As the name implies, the Pilgrimage Choir’s members are themselves pilgrim veterans, hailing from St. Joseph Oratory in Green Bay, WI. As pilgrims themselves, they truly enter into the spirit of the pilgrimage and understand the import of the Liturgy which sustains the pilgrims on their journey.
[youtube]tMSHrZbCe38[/youtube]
Pilgrimage Choir, directed by Professor Rebecca Ostermann,
rehearses in Coliseum church at Auriesville, 2010
The members of the Pilgrimage Choir 2010 are:
Hannah Haltom, alto 1st-year pilgrim
Christina Kanzenbach, soprano 8-yr vet
Rebecca Kanzenbach, soprano 10-yr vet
William Kanzenbach, tenor 8-yr vet
Kaleb Kerscher, bass 4-yr vet
Andrew Ostermann, bass 3-yr vet
Julia Ostermann, soprano & organist 6-yr vet
Sarah Ostermann, soprano 8-yr vet
Alberta Qamar, alto 7-yr vet
Fabian Qamar, tenor & organist 7-yr vet
This year’s Pilgrimage Choir was honored to welcome four guest members from the Schola of the New York Catholic Chorale, Artists-in-Residence at Sienna College, Loudonville, New York:
William Helmer, tenor Dennis Coker, tenor Chris Ritter, bass Ken Rudolph, bass
The Pilgrimage Choir is conducted by Rebecca Ostermann, 12-year pilgrimage veteran, including the groundbreaking Pilgrimage for Restoration in 1996. Formerly the conductor of St. Joseph Oratory Choir in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Rebecca is now serving as Lecturer in Music and Assistant Conductor of Choirs at Ave Maria University in Florida.
The Pilgrimage Choir repertoire has included:
Missa Secunda, Hans Leo Hassler
Mass for Three Voices, Antonio Lotti
Ave Verum Corpus, William Byrd
Salve Regina, Antonio Lotti
Jesu Rex Admirabilis, Palestrina
Ave Maria, Jacques Arcadelt
Exsultate Justi, Ludovico Viadana
Vous etés san pareille, Claude Thompson
Proper chants of the Mass
Veni Creator Spiritus!
An ‘old’ Pope connects with young pilgrims, heart to heart
“And they said one to the other: Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in this way, and opened to us the scriptures”, (Lk. 24:32.) and the mysteries of The Life in via?
6 November 2010 (VIS) – At 4.30 p.m. today Benedict XVI celebrated Mass for the Holy Year of Santiago de Compostela in the city’s Plaza de Obradoiro, so called because it once housed the workshops of the stonemasons who worked on the cathedral.
“[…] I would like this message to reach all young people: this core content of the Gospel shows you in particular the path by which, in renouncing a selfish and short-sighted way of thinking so common today, and taking on instead Jesus’ own way of thinking, you may attain fulfilment and become a seed of hope.
“The celebration of this Holy Year of Compostela also brings this to mind. This is what, in the secret of their heart, … so many pilgrims experience as they walk the way to Santiago de Compostela to embrace the Apostle. The fatigue of the journey, the variety of landscapes, their encounter with peoples of other nationalities – all of this opens their heart to what is the deepest and most common bond that unites us as human beings: we are in quest, we need truth and beauty, we need an experience of grace, charity, peace, forgiveness and redemption. And in the depth of each of us there resounds the presence of God and the working of the Holy Spirit”.
Taken from the Vatican Information Service’s e-posting of November 7, 2010: PV-Spain/VIS 20101107(1430)
Read more about the Pope’s pilgrimage to Spain and to the Shrine of [St. James the Apostle] Santiago de Compostela at
http://press.catholica.va/news_services/press/vis/englinde.php
One man’s report
The following personal account of Pilgrimage 2010 is especially noteworthy coming from returning veteran pilgrim Ted Amberg of Michigan. He and wife Audrey are also distinguished co-builders of the pilgrimage organization in its early years.
[Ted’s account appears here edited, since he had not written it with publication in mind. Supposing, according to the adage, that “it is easier to obtain forgiveness than pardon”, the editor hereby begs the author’s pardon in anticipation of the need!]
*******
Greetings, Pilgrimage Director!
I almost feel remiss in not writing sooner after the pilgrimage. Things have returned to their usual hectic around here. But let me try to describe my experiences during this, the 15th annual Pilgrimage for Restoration.
As I had written to you in the summer, we would try to make it – well, thanks be to God, we did, after about a 2000 mile car trip east, south and then north to the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament [Lake George, NY].
Audrey and I are very glad we did. Read More
Too Soft for Suffering?
by Michael A. Six
The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the violent do bear it away. Mt. xi: 12
Know you not that the unjust shall not possess
the kingdom of God? Nor the soft …. I Cor. vi:9-10
Imagine people young and old (but mostly young, very young) up at the crack of dawn, kneeling on the cold earth at holy Mass, taking meager breakfast almost as an afterthought, then walking all day long: confessing, singing, reveling and finally – exhausted – sleeping under the stars. Imagine three more days of the same.
A chapter from a story book of long bygone days in a land far away?
Imagine again. It happens every year since 1996, in the Adirondack wilderness of New York State. Read More
UGRENT Message about Camps
Greetings Pilgrims!
Please read this very important message.
It has to do with where you may camp Tuesday night, and how to get to the rendezvous & step-off point Wednesday morning.
This year the Lake George Battleground Campground closed earlier than usual on account of construction.
That means pilgrims who elect to camp Tuesday night will have to do so at a NEW LOCATION: Hearthstone Point Campground, 3298 Lake Shore Drive, Lake George Vlg NY 12845.
<http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/24470.html> 518/668-5193
The NEW CAMPSITE is located on NY Rte 9N, three miles north of Wednesday morning’s rendezvous location, and just a half mile short of Cramer’s Point Motel.
Holy Mass will be celebrated as usual at 7:15 Wednesday under the monument to St. Isaac Jogues in the Lake George Battleground Park.
Rendezvous and final check-in will begin as always at 05:45 in the Million Dollar Beach (MDB) parking lot across the street from the monument.
But this year, campers will have to be shuttled there.
Beginning very early Wednesday morning organizers will shuttle pilgrims from Hearthstone Campground (and from Cramer’s Point Motel as usual) to the MDB parking lot to form up their brigades.
Because of all the early commotion, organizers urge you more strongly than ever to check-in early Tuesday at Hearthstone from 4:30 until 7:15pm or at Cramer’s Point Motel from 8:00pm till 10:30pm.
Further instructions will be given to you at check-in.
God grant you a blessed pilgrimage!
Greg Lloyd
Director of the Pilgrimage