Travel

The Cornish Celtic Catholic Way is a Pilgrim Way for the Diocese of Plymouth from the Cathedral of SS Mary & Boniface in Plymouth to St Michael's Mount, Marazion, Cornwall. The Way has been generously contributed by Frans Vossenberg from Fredericksburg, Virginia in the USA, who walked it with his family during August 2023. The pilgrimage is based upon Rev Nigel Marns' wonderful Cornish Celtic ... Read More

The Liverpool Pilgrim Way is a 30.1 mile long route from the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool to the Shrines of Blessed Dominic Barberi in St Helens and St Edmund Arrowsmith in Ashton-in-Makerfield. The Way passes the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament in central Liverpool, before reaching the waterfront. The route follows the River Mersey, then crosses the site of the Festival ... Read More

The Way of Our Lady of Light is a 68 mile long Pilgrim Way for the Diocese of Brentwood from the Cathedral of St Mary & St Helen in Brentwood to the Shrine of Our Lady of Light in Clacton-on-Sea. It can only be walked during the summer months because the route involves two seasonal ferries at Brightlingsea. There is also a short tidal causeway. When the ferries are not operating (or at any tim... Read More

The St Chad's Way is a Pilgrim Way for the Archdiocese of Birmingham from the Metropolitan Cathedral of St Chad in central Birmingham to the new Shrine of St Chad in Lichfield Cathedral. The Way was suggested by Deacon Owen Gresty and has been researched and walked by Hearts in Search of God Project Lead Phil McCarthy. St Chad of Mercia was a Seventh Century Anglo-Saxon monk who became abbot of se... Read More

Following a blessing at the end of the 8am Mass on Sunday, 16 July, 13 pilgrims from the Catholic Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Bournmouth Oratory, set out on their week-long Augustine Camino pilgrimage. They travelled by coach to Rochester, from where, following a tour of Rochester Cathedral, they set out at 1.30pm to walk to Aylesford Priory, arriving around 4.45pm, in time to jo... Read More

Phil McCarthy is a man on a mission - to rebuild a culture of walking pilgrimage that has been somewhat lost in England and Wales. "England is quite unusual in that pilgrimage was actually banned by Act of Parliament in 1538 by Thomas Cromwell," says Phil. "So we lost the shrines, very often the cathedrals, and we lost the religious infrastructure along the way." That's where Pilgrim Ways comes in... Read More

On the morning of Tuesday 11th April 2023, Community of the Passion member Lya Vollering set off from Canterbury to begin walking the 1,800km pilgrimage trail known as the Via Francigena. Ninety-six days later, Lya reached the end of the trail: Rome. It can be hard to condense such a thing down into words. The act of travelling, on foot, for that long, is in itself a sort of meditative experience,... Read More

There was not much room below the deck of the 34ft yacht as I bowed my head to follow Russ Fairman down into the cramped cabin of Mintaka. The cabin was smaller than that of Héloïse, our own yacht moored further down the pontoon in Oban Marina, and I wondered how Russ and his rotating crew of sometimes up to six managed in such a confined space during some of the longer, and more difficult, legs... Read More

Eddie Gilmore, director of the London Irish Chaplaincy, writes: I was back in the West of Ireland for our Emigrants Walk in Mayo and took the opportunity to make a couple of sacred little trips. The first was to Glenamaddy in Galway, near to which my dad was born and raised and where there still lives my Aunty Nellie who is the last surviving member of the family there. It was lovely to see her ag... Read More

"Through baptism we embark on a road that is sometimes smooth, sometimes rough, but we do not journey alone." Fr Kevin Knox-Lecky, former Parish Priest of St Mary's, Glastonbury. Every year since the early 1950's the Clifton Diocesan Glastonbury Pilgrimage has been held with Mass and a rosary procession. Today most people travel by car, but until the 1960s groups from each deanery walked carrying ... Read More

Having spent almost twenty years at Minsteracres Passionist Retreat Centre in the Northumbrian countryside, the last seven of these as coordinator of the eco-community in the walled garden in the grounds of the centre, Lya Vollering decided last December to move on to new pastures. Saying farewell to the walled garden with a celebratory gathering of family and friends did not lessen the sadness Ly... Read More

Eddie Gilmore, director of the Camden Irish Centre writes: Whilst walking one day last summer along the final stretch of the Pilgrims Way to Canterbury I came across a noticeboard with information about an interesting-sounding event. The noticeboard announced that this was the spot where pilgrims would have got their first sight of the cathedral, seven and a half miles away. It also mentioned an a... Read More

A small boat carrying flags bearing the Celtic Cross, the Holy Spirit Dove and Our Lady Star of the Sea, is currently sailing up the east coast of the UK. Southampton yacht master Russ Fairman is undertaking a 2.5 months long sailing pilgrimage - in aid of seafaring charity Stella Maris who celebrate their 100th anniversary this year. Beginning with Mass in St Joseph's Church in Southampton on Sat... Read More

So, I made it and what a journey it has been. I don't think I was ever so close to giving up on a pilgrimage as I was when I came out of Sarria and met that beastly incline. OK, so I did give up on a pilgrimage once. It was in 2017, the Camino Ignaciano, a pilgrimage undertaken and documented by St Ignatius. I kept having a severe pain in the underneath part of my heel and no matter how much I tri... Read More