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Signs of the Pilgrim Church...
Pilgrimage to a place where a significant event has occurred can be both a profoundly human and a religious experience. Each year thousands search out their family's history or the places where our country's history was forged. Pilgrimage is part of the major religions of the world: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist.
In the early and medieval Church, people spontaneously traveled to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, to the tombs of the apostles and martyrs at Rome, and to the churches and shrines containing relics of saints. During the middle ages, Santiago de Campostello in northwestern Spain and Canterbury in England were well-known places of pilgrimage.
Medieval literature frequently recounts stories of people on pilgrimage, and at times their conduct lacked the decorum associated with a religious activity. The abuses both of those responsible for shrines and of those making pilgrimage were denounced by Erasmus and other reformers. To curb abuses, church authorities in the 17th and 18th centuries placed restrictions on pilgrimage, sometimes even closing shrines which were associated with fraudulent practices.
In the 19th and 20th, the Marian apparitions of Lourdes Knock, La Salette, Beauraing, and Fatima gave rise to area centers for prayer. Although people came to find healing and strength, and to experience for themselves the miracu lous event which had occurred, these Marian shrines contributed to renewing the sense of pilgrimage in the Church. Today, about 80% of the shrines in the Catholic world are dedicated to Mary. Each year, millions of pilgrims set out on route to Marian shrines: 10 million to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico), 6 million to Lourdes (France), 5 million to Czestochowa (Poland), and 4 million to Aparecida (Brazil).
In academic theology, shrines were never given any recognition, and their existence hardly acknowledged. The old Code of Canon Law and Vatican Council II did not refer to shrines. The relation of a shrine to the local church was not clear, nor was any type of canonical or episcopal recognition extended to shrines.
Pope Paul VI (1963-78) played no small role in starting the movement of ecclesial reflection on the role of shrines within the life of the Church. In the 1960s, at the meetings of rectors of Marian Shrines in Italy, he urged them to "lift their voice and let their existence be known in the Church." In annual addresses to those responsible for Marian shrines, he was concerned with the role of shrines in the liturgical and pastoral life of the Church. Shrines, he said, were "spiritual clinics" (1965), "testimonies of miraculous deeds and of a continual wave of devotion" (1966), "luminous stars in the Church's sky.... centers of devotion, prayer, recollection, prayer, and spiritual refreshment" (1970).
The 1983 Code of Canon Law included for the first time some provisions related to shrines. A shrine was defined as a "church or other sacred place to which the faithful make pilgrimages for a particular pious reason, with the approval of the local ordinary" (c1230). Paul VI's wish that shrines be centers for an intense Christian life (un punto d'intensità religiosa) found expression in canon 1234: "At shrines more abundant means of salvation are to be provided to the faithful; the word of God is to be carefully proclaimed; liturgical life is to be appropriately fostered, especially through the celebration of the Eucharist and penance...."
During the Marian Year, 1987-88, a number of suggestions were given to Marian shrines by the Central Committee for the Celebration of the Marian Year. The Eucharist at Marian shrines is to reveal the "fullness of the paschal mystery, communion with the universal Church, and the presence of Mary in word and symbol." Marian shrines should cultivate a sense of beauty (via pulchntudinis) and an atmosphere of prayer and contemplation. A Marian shrine is an appropriate place for discerning and respondint to vocation. "Every vocation is a conscious and free response of a person tto a gift of God. A Marian shrine is a sign of this mysterious relationship between God's call and the person's response." If possible, Marian shrines should be associated with some works of charity: hospitals, schools for the disadvantaged, homes for the sick. Lastly, Marian shrines should foster and encourage ecumenical prayer, encounters, and dialogues.
At the request of rectors of Marian shrines, the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1986) was developed and made available to the Church. The Collection is a set of votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin, which can be used almost every day of the year by those on pilgrimage. These Masses contain a rich tradition of Marian devotion, with texts drawn from many sources. Their use was extended to communities and parishes who wish to use a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin on Saturdays and at other times of the year. This initiative of Marian shrines has enriched the liturgy of the whole Church.
Marian shrines are best thought of as places of pilgrimage, not as sights to see or stops on a vacation trip. Pilgrimage is "a symbol of the great journey of human life towards God." The life of the individual is a pilgrimage, and the Church itself is in pilgrimage. Pilgrims endure privations to join with others journeying together towards a common goal. They join past generations in the prayer of gratitude for a miraculous event and a hallowed place.
All "the times and rhythms" of the pilgrimage are symbolic and instructive: the preparation, the coming together and meeting other pilgrims, the welcome to the shrine, the visit to the sanctuary and the celebration of the Eucharist, the return home. The purpose of pilgrimage was to guide the pilgrim "to the essential: Jesus Christ, the Savior, the end of every journey and the source of all holiness."
Vatican Council II spoke of Mary's "pilgrimage of faith." She precedes and encourages the members of the Church in their own pilgrimage of faith. Marian shrines are one expression of Mary's presence to the Church. There is a "'geography' of faith and Marian devotion," which includes all those special places of pilgrimage where God's people find, within the radius of Mary's faith, a strengthening of their own faith (Mother of the Redeemer, 28).
A new role for shrines was highlighted in the First World Congress on Shrines and Pilgrimages (1992) sponsored by the Pontifical Council on Migrants and Itinerant People. In a world with millions of refugees, shrines have become of gathering places for peoples who have been uprooted from their homes and churches. In his address to the congress, Pope John Paul II expressed the wish that "persons [whom] life has treated harshly, the poor, the people who are distant from the Church" may find welcome at shrines. By extending hospitality to refugees and pilgrims, shrines reflect Mary's generous welcoming of God's word and her gatherhing all people into the Body of Christ. Mary precedes God's people in their own pilgrimage of faith.
--taken from the Marian Library Newsletter (Spring, 1996)
At a shrine, God's pilgrim people gather in the Lord's presence. Similar to a church, a shrine is a type of icon of God's dwelling with his people, with the Church, with the individual believer.
A Marian shrine is a place for an encounter with God. There, as in the mystery of the Incarnation, Mary is present. She is the dwelling place of God, the throne of Wisdom, the living temple of the Holy Spirit, the one who encountered the Lord in a unique way.
Marian shrines usually have their origins in some extraordinary person or event that makes a particular place a center of devotion and pilgrimage. Thehistory of the event and the remembrance of Mary's intercession at this place make a shrine a privileged way of encountering Mary's presence.
Shrine: Place of Worship
The liturgy, which is the principal goal of pilgrimage to a Marian shrine, should be exemplary for the quality of the participation, the fidelity to the rite, the richness of the content, and the beauty of the ceremonies. Pilgrims to Marian shrines should participate in a full program of liturgical celebrations and devotions.
Christian tradition brings Marian devotion and the Eucharist together; this connection is based on "the reality itself of the incarnation of the Word of God and the unique role exercised by Mary in the economy of salvation, by Mary who conceived the Lord and gave Him as gift to all people." Every Eucharist is celebrated within the communion of the saints, in which Mary occupies the principal role.
Eucharistic celebrations at Marian shrines should reveal the fullness of the paschal mystery, communion with the universal Church, and the presence of Mary in word and symbol.
Shrine: Focus of Culture
In addition to being a place of worship, a Marian shrine is a center to foster cultural development. The history, tradition, and art of a shrine contribute to the via pulchritudinis and to the contemplation of God's beauty revealed in Mary. Pilgrims should be provided with materials on the historical, artistic, and pastoral significance of the shrine.
Marian shrines are natural centers for explaining the conciliar teaching on Mary and for demonstrating the Marian dimension of the life of faith.
Shrine: Center for Promoting the Sense of Vocation
Every vocation is a conscious and free response of a person to a gift of God. A Marian shrine is a sign of this mysterious relationship between God's call and the person's response. A shrine is a place for announcing and celebrating the mystery of vocation within the Church. Mary's reception of the angel's message and her response of "Fiat" are the model for every vocation.
Mary is the woman called to collaborate in God's work. She is the virgin totally consecrated to the Lord. She is the wife and mother in a family in which God's promises to his people were fulfilled. Marian shrines are special places for discerning the meaning of vocation, the feminine, consecrated life, the family.
Shrine: Hearth of Charity
Works of charity which give expression to the Lord's concern for the poor, as recalled in Mary's Magnificat, should be part of a Marian shrine. The mother of Jesus was always attentive to those in need (John 2,2-10).
In all parts of the world, Marian shrines have established and maintained hospitals, schools for the poor, homes for the retired. The sick should be welcomed at a Marian shrine, and special services and assistance provided for them. Shrines should contribute to seeking solutions to problems of con- temporary society and to alleviating suffering caused by chemical dependency, AIDS, homeless- ness, old age.
Shrine: Center of Ecumenism
In Christian history, Mary's role and Marian devotion have caused much controversy and have been cited as reasons for the division of the churches. Marian shrines should courageously assume a role of promoting ecumenical prayer, meeting, and discussion. They should be attentive to the ecumenical dialogue and aware of the complexity of the issues. Rightly understood, Christ's mother, the mother of all people, the first disciple of Christ, is a motive for union of all Christians. Marian sanctuaries are places of prayer for the unity of all people. The Marian Year commemorates the twelfth centenary of the II Council of Nicaea, the millennium of Christianity in Kievan Russ, the sixth centenary of the conversion of Lithuania. In celebrating these events, Marian shrines promote the union of faith and prayer with the members of these churches.
--taken from the Marian Library Newsletter (Summer, 1998)
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