Sacred sites and pilgrimage routes
The date was October 13, 1917. Rain had soaked the Cova da Iria for hours. Somewhere between 30,000 and 70,000 people, estimates vary widely, stood in the mud outside a small Portuguese village, waiting. What they witnessed next would be reported in secular newspapers,...
The candles had been burning for hours. Standing inside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City on a Tuesday morning in December, surrounded by pilgrims who'd traveled thousands of miles, some on their knees across cold stone, I felt something shift. It wasn't tourism. It was...
There's a moment that catches most pilgrims off guard. You've traveled hundreds of miles, probably lost sleep on a connecting flight through Paris, maybe dragged a suitcase over cobblestones in the rain... and then you round a corner near the Gave de Pau river and see the Grotto for the first time....