Beauty and Christ
What Is Christian Pilgrimage?
Christian pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place undertaken as an act of devotion, to pray, to remember, and to seek God. Believers have long walked to Jerusalem, to Rome, and along roads like the Camino de Santiago. The outward journey has always been a picture of the inward one: the whole of the Christian life understood as a pilgrimage home to God.
What pilgrimage is, and where people go
A pilgrimage is travel with a purpose beyond tourism: to reach a place made holy by God’s acts or his people’s prayers, and there to worship. The great Christian destinations include Jerusalem and the Holy Land, where Jesus lived, died, and rose; Rome, with the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul; and the Camino de Santiago in Spain, the road to the shrine of the apostle James. Pilgrims walk to pray, to give thanks, to seek help in sorrow, or simply to draw near to God with their whole body, not only their thoughts.
What it points to
The Bible treats the journey itself as a spiritual picture. Abraham was called to go. Israel walked through the wilderness toward a promised land. And the New Testament calls believers strangers and pilgrims on the earth, travelling toward a city whose builder and maker is God.
So the deepest pilgrimage is not to any single place, but to the living God. Jesus said he himself is the way. Every road a pilgrim walks is, in the end, a picture of coming home to him.
Come and see
Beauty is a door, never a trick. The cathedrals, the hymns, and the long roads of pilgrimage were all made by people who had first found something, or Someone, worth the labour of a lifetime. If the beauty draws you, follow it to its source. The living Christ it points toward is not an argument to win but a Person to meet, and he still draws near to everyone who comes to him with an open heart. The Gospel of John is a gentle place to begin.
Meet JesusRead the Gospel of JohnThe Church around the worldJesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a Christian pilgrimage?
- A Christian pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place made as an act of devotion, to pray, remember, and seek God. Common destinations include Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Rome, and the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
- Why do Christians go on pilgrimage?
- Christians go on pilgrimage to draw near to God with their whole body and not only their thoughts, to pray, give thanks, seek help in sorrow, and remember the acts of God in a place set apart by them. The journey also pictures the whole Christian life as a journey home to God.
- Do Christians have to go on pilgrimage?
- No. Pilgrimage is a devotional practice, not a requirement of the faith. The New Testament teaches that God is met wherever a person seeks him, and that the deepest pilgrimage is the journey of the heart to Christ, who called himself the way (John 14:6).