Billings Catholic Schools students, staff, and local catholic community gathering at the start of their 14.7 mile pilgrimage at St. Bernard’s in the heights. (Courtesy)
On Good Friday, a group of Central students joined other members of Billings’s Catholic community for a walking pilgrimage. This year marks the 3rd pilgrimage in the community. The pilgrimage started at St. Bernard’s Parish and ended at Central High School. Throughout the pilgrimage, the group stopped at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish, St. Francis Catholic School, St. Pius X Parish, Mary Queen of Peace Parish, and St. Patrick’s Co-Cathedral for a total of 14.7 miles from start to finish. At each stop, the group would pray a designated prayer that correlated with one of the seven most famous churches in Rome. The group prayed four rosaries while also praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3:00 pm to commemorate of the hour of Jesus’s death. The pilgrimage offered a way for participants to see Good Friday in a new, spiritual, and significant way.
Billings Catholic Schools students, staff, and local catholic community gathering at their second stop of their 14.7 mile pilgrimage at St. Thomas catholic perish.
While the walk itself covers a significant distance and is designed to be difficult, many found this struggle to be rewarding and beneficial. Participant sophomore Vannessa Sheridan explained, “It really helped strengthen my faith just because when I was tired or just wanted to quit, I just thought about God and what he sacrificed for me and I just found strength within him.” Like Sheridan, many found the difficulty of the pilgrimage to be quite impactful because it gave participants a way to offer their struggles up to God. Sheridan further touched on this, stating that “it was something small that I could do for him.” The pilgrimage was able to take on the purpose of uniting with Jesus spiritually through the difficulty.
Billings Catholic Schools students, staff, and local catholic community gathering at their third stop on their 14.7 mile pilgrimage at St. Pius X catholic perish. (Courtesy )
Many participants saw excellent value in the prayers said throughout the pilgrimage, as it recentered them in the spiritual mindset of seeing and appreciating Jesus’s passion and death on Good Friday. On her positive experience with the prayers, Junior Emily Day positively said, “I felt like it was a very powerful experience and it really helped when I was really tired at some points to just push through.” The prayers gave participants the ability to focus solely on the purpose of the pilgrimage instead of the difficulty of it. Although, some may still hesitate to take part in it because of the long walking distance. However, Day is an advocate for participating as she stated, “I would say that I wouldn’t think twice about it, just do it, because even though it’s very tiring, it is also very rewarding, and it is a very good and fruitful thing to do for your Catholic faith.” The pilgrimage not only offers a way to enter deep into prayer, but it also allows participants to give up their difficulties to Jesus on the day he died for all.
This year, there was a significant number of Central students who walked the pilgrimage, and it is encouraged that students consider participating next year. Many found it beneficial and personally impactful. Students not only found a way to deepen their faith through the experience, but they also found a way to bond with those taking part alongside them. It is a way for Christians to join in commemoration of Good Friday and experience the holy day in a new way.
