Year of Faith – Diocese of Cleveland Pilgrimage Part 3

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.

Sunday we sent a lovely day visiting St. Mary’s in Painesville, OH

Google Maps had us going up 77 to 2, so we had to go around the infamous “Dead Man’s Curve” but Mr. Pete managed it okay and it was an interesting drive. Once we arrived, we found a table set up with a raffle. First prize was for a huge flat screen t.v., second prize a bible (they didn’t say which edition), and third prize a blender. The drawing is September 8 and you don’t need to be present to win so we bought a book of tickets and entered with fingers crossed! The priest who was at the table was very friendly and wished us good luck! He also directed us to the Pilgrimage table so that we could get our passports stamped.

The music was simple and nice – using the Breaking Bread Hymnal, which I am coming to like much more than the Gather books!  Guitar- flute, and very nice voices – very well done.

St. Mary’s is probably the “plainest” of the churches we have visited. Mr. Pete thinks they may have had elaborate paintings on the wall at one time, but that was all covered up now. The windows were beautiful though

and the statuary was probably the best of the four churches!

You never know who you’ll run into!   This is my sister with Rosie.  She competed in a bike time trial and came in second!   Then she made it to mass and was on her way to St. Mary’s in Elyria for the next stamp in her own pilgrimage passport.

We only had to travel one exit back to get to the Lake Erie Beach at Headlands – so we had a picnic lunch and then played in the water for a few hours – all in all a very nice way to spend a Sunday!