Angelus News | July 29, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 15
On the cover: A pilgrim walks on his knees outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2019. For our special pilgrimage issue, on Page 10 Mike Aquilina writes on how the urge to leave everything and travel afar is as old as Christianity itself. On Page 14, Elise Ureneck recounts the unexpected graces of her last pilgrimage with her late mother, and on Page 16, California historian Stephen Binz points the way to the pilgrim path in our own backyard. On Page 20, Pasadena native Jenny Gorman Patton tells of finding the healing she needed, rather than the one she wanted, at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, France.
On the cover: A pilgrim walks on his knees outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2019. For our special pilgrimage issue, on Page 10 Mike Aquilina writes on how the urge to leave everything and travel afar is as old as Christianity itself. On Page 14, Elise Ureneck recounts the unexpected graces of her last pilgrimage with her late mother, and on Page 16, California historian Stephen Binz points the way to the pilgrim path in our own backyard. On Page 20, Pasadena native Jenny Gorman Patton tells of finding the healing she needed, rather than the one she wanted, at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, France.
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RSTOCK<br />
was running out for future mother-daughter<br />
trips.<br />
My mom had been reading about St.<br />
André Bessette, the Quebecois porter<br />
of <strong>No</strong>tre Dame College in Montreal.<br />
A religious brother of the Congregation<br />
of the Holy Cross, St. Bessette<br />
was assigned to the role of doorkeeper<br />
due to his poor health and lack of education.<br />
Yet his was not a hidden life.<br />
Many visitors who prayed with him<br />
received physical healings, and word<br />
spread quickly. People came in droves<br />
to meet with him.<br />
Brother Bessette attributed<br />
the healings to the intercession<br />
of St. Joseph, not to<br />
himself. In the interest of increasing<br />
devotion to the foster<br />
father of Jesus, he saved up<br />
money to build a small shrine<br />
dedicated to him.<br />
When the oratory opened<br />
in 1904, he was assigned to<br />
be its full-time caretaker.<br />
There he received thousands<br />
of pilgrims, many of whom<br />
received physical healings. A<br />
larger basilica was completed<br />
after Brother Bessette died.<br />
It is the largest shrine to St.<br />
Joseph in the world, and it<br />
attracts more than 2 million<br />
pilgrims a year. Both the<br />
smaller shrine and the basilica<br />
are laden with crutches<br />
that pilgrims have left behind<br />
after praying at the site.<br />
A general rule with religious<br />
pilgrimages is that anything<br />
that can go wrong does go<br />
wrong. I had a sense that even<br />
though we were driving north,<br />
things were headed south only<br />
an hour into the drive at the<br />
Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New<br />
Jersey Turnpike.<br />
I accompanied my mother into<br />
the restroom using her walker, only<br />
to find the handicapped bathroom<br />
occupied by an able-bodied woman.<br />
Once we got into the stall, I received<br />
my first introduction to the world of<br />
ADA compliance. It turns out when<br />
it comes to disabilities, the one-sizefits-all<br />
approach doesn’t actually fit all<br />
needs.<br />
Our Airbnb advertised accessibility<br />
as well, but the beds were too close to<br />
the ground for my mom to get in and<br />
out of, and the walls reeked of smoke.<br />
The weekend we chose happened to<br />
coincide with a Grand Prix race, so<br />
the city streets were blocked by sportscars<br />
and filled with tourists, making<br />
already treacherous navigation more<br />
difficult.<br />
This is to say nothing of the most<br />
disappointing part of the trip: When<br />
we got to the tomb of St. André, we<br />
found it closed to visitors for renovation.<br />
When I saw the blockade, I<br />
began to cry.<br />
St. André Bessette, a member of the Holy Cross Brothers and founder<br />
of St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal in Montreal, is pictured in an<br />
undated photo from the archives of St. Joseph’s Oratory. | CNS<br />
My hands were sore from pushing<br />
my mother along city streets and up<br />
the steep incline to the basilica. But<br />
most of all, my heart ached for her.<br />
We had come all of this way — the<br />
physical and emotional distance — to<br />
meet the porter who couldn’t open<br />
this one door for us.<br />
I didn’t have the heart to look at her<br />
face, so I wheeled her a few steps over<br />
to the eight altars dedicated to St.<br />
Joseph. There the saint appears in relief,<br />
lit up by an intense red hue emanating<br />
from the votive candles. There<br />
are eight altars, each dedicated to a<br />
group of people of cause for which<br />
the saint’s intercession is sought,<br />
including Joseph, Guardian of the<br />
Pure in Heart; Joseph, Protector of<br />
the Church; Joseph, Mainstay of<br />
Families; Joseph, Terror of Demons;<br />
and Joseph, Model of Laborers.<br />
Then we stopped by the three others<br />
and were overcome: Joseph, Hope<br />
of the Sick; Joseph, Our Solace in<br />
Suffering; and Joseph, Patron Saint of<br />
the Dying. It seemed that St. André<br />
was doing what he had always done<br />
— pointing pilgrims away<br />
from himself and toward St.<br />
Joseph.<br />
We stood there at the last<br />
altar praying together:<br />
Open our eyes that we may<br />
glimpse the road to Life that<br />
lies beyond death. / May<br />
nothing, not denial, anger,<br />
nor depression, separate<br />
us from the Love of God./<br />
Strengthen our faith in God<br />
who always finds ways of<br />
preserving us in his friendship.<br />
/ Be beside us to hold<br />
our hands when we take our<br />
first steps toward the Eternal<br />
Kingdom.<br />
Three years later, my father,<br />
brother, and I were praying<br />
at my mother’s bedside as she<br />
received the anointing of the<br />
sick. She died a few hours later.<br />
I spent a long time asking<br />
God why my mother wasn’t<br />
among the pilgrims who left<br />
the waters of Lourdes able to<br />
walk, or who left her wheelchair<br />
behind at the oratory.<br />
But I can now imagine that as she<br />
passed from this life to the next, she<br />
walked through the gates of heaven<br />
on those legs she wanted back, greeted<br />
by St. André at the door. And the<br />
ever glorious patron of a happy death<br />
would be close behind, welcoming<br />
her home to rest at the end of her<br />
earthly pilgrimage.<br />
Elise Italiano Ureneck is a contributor<br />
to <strong>Angelus</strong> and columnist for<br />
Catholic <strong>News</strong> Service writing from<br />
Rhode Island.<br />
<strong>July</strong> <strong>29</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • <strong>15</strong>