“Praise God in his holy temple” – A Jubilee Pilgrim Witness Story
As I am sitting at my prayer corner, the morning after a beautiful Pilgrimage at the Cathedral, watching the birds outside of my window feasting in the feeder around my flowers so flourished after a most needed rain. I am listening to a podcast on today’s scripture and the commentary from a priest especially on this special day of the canonization of Saint Carlo Acutis and Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati. Jesus is asking us to be a true disciple, to take up our cross, to love the Church and to love His Father more than anything else in the world. What He means is to love our neighbors like a brother or a sister. Each one of us is the church; this will keep building our church. To be united as one is vital, the most important part of the Church, out of love for the Church if we want it to survive.
Reflecting on this commentary, I relived my experience of the Jubilee Pilgrimage on September 6. I was among my brothers and sisters in Christ and never felt so much love and at home where I belong. To be able to pray with the Holy Eucharist during the Adoration, to pray and touch Holy Relics, shoulder to shoulder with my fellows in Christ, to be in awe and in tears with so much emotion inside of me. It is too much to explain in so little words. Our Bishop, our Shepherd, welcome us with so much warmth and love because he has the Diocese at heart which he is renewing physically and spiritually in such an amazing way. The choir was outstanding; so angelic. I felt the Holy Spirit pouring all over me during mass and I could not help but cry. The message from Father Peter Melanson gives us “Hope” for a beautiful and promising future to come. As a fellow parishioner told me “This extraordinary experience renewed our baptismal and rekindle the fire of faith in us”. To have a pilgrimage each year to bring the sheep to the Shepherd for a renewal of our faith would be like refueling us – like refiling the tank of gas of our car, to keep our journey on the road ahead of us. So, this is our wish – that we can experience another Pilgrimage along with my brothers and sister in Christ, especially those who could not join us this time, so they too can come and refill their tank. Words cannot express our gratitude to the Diocese for this experience of the renewal of faith and “Hope” for our church. I know I can speak on behalf of my brothers and sisters in Chris by expressing this gratefulness.
[Nadine LeBlanc]
Jubilee Pilgrimages take place at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception the first Saturday of every month beginning at 10:00 am for a special day filled with prayer, devotions, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the Jubilee Pilgrimage Mass at 12:10 pm. Come and experience the Jubilee Year at the mother church of the Diocese of Saint John!