A pilgrimage starts with the preparation. How long? When? Where? With whom?
The beauty of a pilgrimage is that you don’t have to go with friends or partners. While it is nice to have company you know, pilgrims will find friends while being together on a journey. The sense of community is crucial.
Pilgrimages by foot, bus, train, plane etc.
If you can fill a bus, you are already together in one place – without any other fellow travellers who happen to go to the same location. You are invited to sing, pray, listen to reflections, look through the windows or relax. While on the bus, you trust the driver to bring you as a group to a certain place, have enough stops on the way and not to worry about your belongings on the way.
The trip from Bamberg to Rome leads you through beautiful landscapes; you can see the yellow fields of canola flowers and the hops fields before passing around Munich and crossing the border to Austria at Kufstein. From the distance, you might get a glimpse of Gnadenwald and some of the beautiful mountains crowned with clouds that appear like smoking volcanoes. Grey and white smoke – only a few days prior to the trip, the world was waiting for the white smoke from the famous Vatican chimney that announces a successful papal election…
The pilgrims experience natural phenomena and technical master pieces on the way. Crossing the Bridge of Europe is truly an experience. The 777-metre-long bridge was built between 1959 and 1963 and stands 190 metres high above the ground. It is the second highest bridge in Europe. Looking down to the valley from a double-decker bus here is not for the faint-hearted.
Once the Alps have been crossed, the group reaches Verona – the town William Shakespeare chose as the set for his famous play: Romeo and Juliet. The pilgrims spend one night in Verona with Franconian brass music after dinner.
The next day, the trip continues. Passing by Bologna and Florence, the group listens to a reflection on the logo of the “Pilgrims of Hope”: the cross as a symbol for the hope of resurrection, and while the left hand of the red pilgrim holds the cross, the right hand is free to reach out… the anchor as a symbol for Christians. The pilgrims on the logo are in a boat, following the cross. If the logo is turned upside down, they are following the anchor and the waves become the sky…
The pilgrims on the bus reflect on the question of what gives them hope in their lives and how Mass can be the foundation of a Church of Hope.
Pilgrims of Hope singing a Song of Hope:
Like a flame my hope is burning, may my song arise to you:
Source of life that has no ending, on life’s path I trust in you.
BM
Series Diary of a Pilgrim
