Mission and Vision
MISSION
Modern Catholic Pilgrim aims to deepen faith and build community across the United States through walked pilgrimage in the Catholic tradition.
VISION
We envision our society transformed by geographic pilgrimage and biblical hospitality into a society more closely mirroring the Kingdom of God.
OUR FOCUSES
PILGRIMAGE:
“For the Church, pilgrimages, in all their multiple aspects, have always been a gift of grace." ~ Pope St. John Paul II
Thousands of people travel across the world for large-scale pilgrimages each year, most popularly to the Camino de Santiago. Yet, there are holy sites all over the world, many in our own backyards.
Modern Catholic Pilgrim brings the pilgrimage back to the basics: setting a (holy) destination and bringing prayerful intentions along the journey there. In this way, we reframe the idea of pilgrimage as something only available in a far-off land and create opportunities for everyone to experience the fruits of deepening faith and building community through pilgrimage. Learn more about the kind of pilgrimages we offer HERE.
HOSPITALITY:
“If there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality. It is one of the richest biblical terms that can deepen and broaden our insight in our relationships to our fellow human beings.” ~ Henri Nouwen
Jesus told the disciples, “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there” (Luke 9:3-4). For our multi-day pilgrimages, we strive to incorporate this biblical hospitality: our pilgrims do not carry tents and sleeping bags nor rely on a support vehicle to do so, but instead trust in the generosity of hosts coordinated by MCP to receive them along the journey. In this way, hosts and pilgrims alike grow from the opportunity to encounter the stranger and grow in community and relationship.
WHAT WE DO
We work to prepare pilgrims, get them to holy sites in the United States, and expand a hospitality network to care for those pilgrims as they journey.
OUR COMMUNITY
We have an ever increasing number of parishes and Catholic Campus Ministries joining our Hospitality Network as well as an ever increasing number of pilgrims out on the road.