In October, six Britton women set out on a pilgrimage that would take them out of their comfort zones to walk in the footsteps of the saints in Portugal, Spain, France, and Rome. Last week, we detailed the first several days of their journey, and rejoin the trip as they arrive in Rome.
The group of local pilgrims from St. John de Britto Catholic Church in Britton included Laurie Stiegelmeier, Linda Deutsch, Flo Hart, Audrey Schuller, Mavis Krista and Delores Morgan. They were accompanied on their trek by Father Jairo Congote, the trip’s spiritual director.
According to Father Congote, “A pilgrim is more than a tourist and a pilgrimage is more than a journey. It is an act of religious devotion. It is stepping out of ourselves to encounter God where he has revealed himself, where his grace has shone with particular splendor and produced rich fruits of conversion and holiness among those who believe.”
A holy encounter was certainly in the cards as the local women spent day 11 at Vatican City. The day began with attending Pope Francis’s weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square.
They also visited the Vatican Museums with the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel. Stiegelmeier personally found this location very moving. “I studied and taught art history,” she explained. “Seeing the art, architecture that I know so well from books was like meeting a pen pal after 50 years of letters. Knowing the process that Michelangelo used to paint the Sistine Ceiling and the poem he wrote about it, seeing the grandeur of it that I never imagined from photos made me cry.”
They also visited St. Peter’s Basilica, the heart of the Catholic Church and the largest church in the world, which Stiegelmeier described “as beautiful as it is immense.”
Audrey Schuller too enjoyed her time in this area. “It was overwhelming to see the beautiful churches and artwork,” she said. “We could have stayed in any of the places for the entirety of our trip and never been able to see and experience everything. That was the hardest part - not being able to have enough time before we had to move on.”
The next day brought a sightseeing tour through Rome of many important cultural and monumental sites and touring three major Basilicas: St. Mary Major, the Basilica of St. John in Lateran, and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
St. Paul’s was a highlight for Stiegelmeier. It is built on the site where the martyr was beheaded with three blows of a sword. “Looking down through a glass plate in the floor where you see part of his coffin is like looking back to the first years after Jesus’ ascension,” said Stiegelmeier. “And in a glass case above the floor hang the chains he wore in prison.”
The last day, the pilgrims enjoyed a very unique location- the catacomb of St. Callixtus, the largest of the 80 around Rome. It covers 37 acres, the equivalent of 28 football fields. One-half million people, many of them Christian martyrs, were buried underground there. The Romans would not allow burial within the city, or burial in the ground, and executed many Christians for burying the dead. The group would celebrate the closing Mass of their trip there in an underground chamber.
Schuller described that time in the catacombs as the most moving of the trip for her. “We were able to have Mass down there in a small chapel and it seemed such a powerful connection to the first Christians,” she asserted. “It was hard to even fathom the nearly 2,000 years of time we were spanning. “ The next day, day 13 of the trip, the women were at the Rome airport by 5:45 a.m. and back in Fargo by 5:30 p.m., a 25-hour day that took them from 77 degree temperatures to snow.
Though it has been over two months since their pilgrimage, the six who went on the journey still reflect on the trip and particularly on the closeness it fostered among them.
“From all of our preparations before, traveling together, and now being home - it has been a blessing to grow in friendship and faith with these women and to have this shared experience,” said Schuller. Delores Morgan echoed that sentiment: “We ladies from Britton bonded in a special way, and all the other people we traveled with became very close. I am so glad I made this trip.”
The pilgrims also find themselves altered on a spiritual level. “Since we are home, Mass seems so much more connected to the past--the apostles, the early Christians, and the saints in heaven who are worshipping with us,” noted Stiegelmeier. “I would go on that trip again tomorrow.”
Indeed, the travelers stress that they will never be the same after the trip. As Linda Deutsch put it, “I chose to go on this pilgrimage because I was told it can change your life. I do believe that happened.”
