Pilgrimage is a journey to a shrine or other holy place made for religious purposes. People who make such a journey are known as pilgrims.
About 100 years after the time of Jesus Christ, Christian pilgrims began making the first pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Rome. In medieval times, pilgrims journeyed not only to the holy sites of Palestine and Rome, but also to the graves of various saints. Special sites of this type include the shrines of Santiago de Compostela (Saint James of Compostela), in Spain; of Saint Thomas Becket, in Canterbury, Kent, in southern England; and of Saint Patrick, in Downpatrick, Ireland.
A priest would bless pilgrims as they set out on their pilgrimage. Pilgrims undertook their journeys to enlist the saint’s help–for example, in curing an illness–as an act of thanksgiving, as an act of penance on account of a sin, or as a means of expressing religious devotion. Pilgrims would stay at hospices or other places where they could take a night’s rest. On their return journeys, they wore the emblem of the place they had visited. Pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, for example, wore a palm leaf and were known as palmers.
Today pilgrims continue to visit centers that were famous in medieval times. But sites identified with modern saints have also become goals for pilgrims. These modern pilgrim sites include the shrines of Saint Francis Xavier, in Goa, India; and of Saint Therese de Lisieux, in France. Pilgrimage centers associated with visions of the Virgin Mary include Lourdes, in France; and Knock, in County Mayo, Ireland. Protestants and Roman Catholics both make annual pilgrimages to the chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham, in Norfolk, England.
Muslims who can afford it are expected to make one pilgrimage during their lifetime to the holy city of Mecca (Makkah), in Saudi Arabia. This pilgrimage is known as the hajj.
