Roman Pilgrimage

Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches by George Weigel, Elizabeth Lev, and Stephen Weigel, 401 pages

Across many cultures, across many eras, the concept of pilgrimage was and is highly esteemed.  The modern western worldview, with its flat earth where every point is interchangeable with every other, is the exception.  Yet large numbers of people still travel to places like Compostela, Jerusalem, and Rome (not to mention Mecca, the Ganges, and Gettysburg), seeking something greater than themselves.  In addition to physical pilgrimages, there also exist chronological ones - Lent, for example, or Ramadan.  Combining the physical and the temporal, in the past few decades students and faculty at the Pontifical College of North America have revived the traditional medieval Lenten pilgrimage to the "station churches" of Rome.  It is this practice, both ancient and new, which is the subject of Roman Pilgrimage.

George Weigel, noted papal biographer (Witness to Hope) and Catholic commentator (Evangelical Catholicism), weaves together the station, the Mass readings, and the readings from the Divine Office for each day into a reflection that walks the reader one day at a time down the road of Lent and beyond, through Easter Week to Divine Mercy Sunday.  This is supplemented with architectural, artistic, and historical commentary on each station by Elizabeth Lev, author of The Tigress of Forli.  A generous sprinkling of gorgeous pictures of Rome's historic churches, taken by Stephen Weigel, tie the whole together, along with maps tracing the pilgrimage routes through the Eternal City.  The result is a spiritually, intellectually, and aesthetically rich guide to "the ultimate pilgrimage" - from Holy Thursday through Good Friday and Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday - through death into new life.