Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage:

A journey made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion.

Friday afternoon I got back from a special pilgrimage, as profession gets closer, the experiences to which we (the novices) have been exposed become better and better. We visited three important shrines of three amazing American Saints, very different from each other but with the likeness of being called to Sanctity by the exemplary lives they lived.
Also visited important historical sites of American History in Philadelphia I got the opportunity to visit the site of the Liberty bell as well as various museums all filled with the richest and vastness of American history. Also we visited Gettysburg in Pennsylvania The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory in the summer of 1863 that ended General Robert E. Lee's second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Often referred to as the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy", it was the war's bloodiest battle with 51,000 casualties. It also provided President Abraham Lincoln with the setting for his most famous address. guided by Fr. Dave Marino, SDB this put in touch with the reality of the Civil war. All was amazing.

First we visited the shrine of

St. Katharina Drexel
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. on 26 November 1858,

Secondly we visited the shrine of

St. John N. Neumann,

The Bishop of Philadelphia lay crumpled in the snow a few blocks from his new cathedral on Logan Square. By the time a priest reached him with the holy oils, Bishop Neumann was dead. That was January 5, 1860. At his own request Bishop Neumann was buried in a basement crypt in Saint Peter's Church where he would be with his Redemptorist confreres.

And before we went to Pennsylvania in Maryland we visited the shrine of:

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Convert to Roman Catholicism; foundress of the American Sisters of Charity, which was the first sisterhood native to the United States; a wife, mother, widow, sole parent, foundress, educator, social minister, and spiritual leader, Elizabeth Bayley Seton was the first person born in the United States to become a canonized saint (September 14, 1975); b. August 28, 1774, New York City; d. Emmitsburg, Maryland, January 4, 1821.

This three amazing Saints are of great inspiration, they are very similar in their apostolate and their lives are connected in many different ways, one of the things that I could see in their backgrounds is their care for the marginalized, the segregated, the less fortunate. An amazing thing about visiting these shrines was also the Presence of Our Lady of Guadalupe on some form she is present, her presence in the shrines just reminded me the importance of the presence of these American Saints in our culture and how they are models for us to follow, Also her continuous presence in my life.