The Year of Faith – Diocese of Cleveland Pilgrimage part 2

For The Year of Faith, the Diocese of Cleveland has organized a way for the faithful to make a Pilgrimage with all that that entails!


There are five churches that have been designated as pilgrimage sites (and one of them is my home church!).  You get a passport at your very first stop and then when you visit one of the pilgrim churches, you get a lovely golden stamp for your passport.  After visiting all four churches, you are supposed to go to the cathedral to get your final stamp.

This only goes until September 7.


Today Mr. Pete and I made our second trip in the pilgrimage- this time we went south to , St. Mary the Immaculate in Wooster, OH

We’ll start with the good.  This is a beautiful Catholic church in downtown Wooster.  It was easy to get to and had great parking.  There were lots of places to choose from to get a bite to eat afterwards too.

The music at mass was well done and familiar, except for the mass parts. The place was packed for mass!

Esthetically the church is gorgeous – take a look

Now that I have been to three of the four pilgrim churches, I’d like to make some suggestions:

• Have greeters and staff the pilgrimage table site!!  You are having visitors to your church – which is a lot like having visitors into your home.  They don’t know their way around so be sure the table is right there for them to find OR have clear directions on how they can find your table.  And having a knowledgeable host or hostess there to help with the passports and answer questions really adds to the pleasant experience!
• This is a diocese wide pilgrimage folks.  I really think all of the churches should be doing the Mass of St. Paul since that is supposed to be our diocesan-signature approved mass parts. So far each church has been doing something different.  Doing the same mass parts would be underlining the point that we are ALL PART OF THE SAME DIOCESE.
• I think if you are expecting pilgrims to your church, maybe this is the year you shouldn’t change over to “summer” mass times!   (says the woman who thought she was arriving 30 minutes early, only to find out she was 30 minutes late!)