Christian Pilgrimages

A pilgrimage is a journey made by a religious person to a holy site. Its a log journey especially one made to a shrine or sacred place. The term pilgrimage primarily used in religion and spirituality of a long journey. Sometimes, it is a journey to a sacred place or shrine or importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Anyone of any religion can have right to participate in pilgrimages. The person who conducts such journey called pilgrim.

In the kingdoms of Israel and Judah the visitation of certain ancient cult-centers was repressed in the 7th century BC, when the worship was restricted to Jahweh at the temple in Jerusalem. In Syria, the shrine of Astarte at the headwater spring of the river Adonis survived until it was destroyed by order of Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD.

Although a pilgrimage is normally viewed in the context of religion, the personality cults cultivated by communist leaders ironically gave birth to pilgrimages of their own. Prior to the demise of the USSR in 1991, a visit to Lenin's Mausoleum in Red Square, Moscow can be said to have had all the characteristics exhibiting a pilgrimage — for atheists and communists.

Catholic Pilgrimages, Protestant Christian Pilgrimages

In religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a sacred place or shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of every major religion participate in pilgrimages. A person who makes such a journey is called a pilgrim. Pilgrimages may be defined as journeys made to some place with the purpose of venerating it, or in order to ask there for supernatural aid, or to discharge some religious obligation.

As specialist in Christian group travel, we are uniquely qualified to provide you and your group with a wonderful pilgrimage to Europe and the Middle East. We use only specially selected and conveniently located hotels with private baths. Our tour managers and guides escort your group from arrival in their countries until you return to the airport. They are all highly qualified, specially trained professionals familiar with both the temporal and spiritual needs of North American Christian pilgrims.

As specialist in Catholic group travel, we are uniquely qualified to provide you and your group with a wonderful pilgrimage to Europe, the Middle East or Mexico. While our prices are competitive because of the buying power of our worldwide network and generous discounts extended by our preferred air carriers, we do not offer "bare bones" bargain tours. We have learned that North American pilgrims expect a certain quality, attention to detail and service when they travel. Thus, we offer a higher quality pilgrimage. Unitours’ prices are all inclusive and any extra are clearly detailed on our brochures. You and your pilgrims, will not experience unexpected extras and options when you travel with us, as we hate surprises as much as you do!

Feeding the masses at World Youth Day

Sydney, July 15, World Youth Day, the Catholic Church's youth pilgrimage has officially opened. The event's organizers have the task of feeding over 150,000 international and Australian pilgrims. And what's on the menu for this feeding of the masses? Why, Vegemite, of course!

"We want to provide pilgrims with a good feed and a little bit of an Australian taste," Geoff Morris, the World Youth Day director of services, said. "A good feed" is Australian for "a good meal".

Pilgrims will also be treated to such Aussie classics as meat pies, lamingtons and baked beans. The organizers have also planned a barbie of biblical proportions.

Reactions to Vegemite amongst the pilgrims has been varied, to say the least. With some enjoying the revelatory rush of vitamins, while others made the mistake of spreading it on too thickly. My advice to the pilgrims would be: like all of life's little pleasures, Vegemite should be enjoyed in moderation!

The Center is the Wilderness - A Journey of Faith

When something really big happens, you need time to make sense of it - to put it in perspective. When the event is trauma or grief, we call this stage denial. The same dynamic is in play with something unexpectedly joyful. Suppose you were to win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes? It's the reason people don't remember much of the events of their wedding day.

St. Paul, as recounted in the book of Acts, had a mystical experience on the road to Damascus that turned his life around. It changed him from a persecutor of the young Christian movement to one of its chief representatives. He was blinded by the light -- literally blinded as the result of a mystical encounter with the risen Christ. Paul was then befriended by one of the very Christians he was on his way to arrest. He was healed of physical and spiritual blindness, baptized as a follower of Jesus, then went home to Tarsus where he worked as a tentmaker for many years. He needed time to make sense of his experience and stayed there until God, in the person of a man named Barnabas, came to get him to begin his ministry.

Jesus had mystical experiences. His intimate relationship with God and his knowledge of God's nature is indicative of mystical experience. When he came up out the baptismal waters, from John the Baptist, Jesus experienced a clarification of his identity. The Gospels describe this experience by saying that the heavens opened up and Jesus heard God say, "This is my son, the beloved."

Jesus found in the baptismal waters, and even more deeply in his wilderness struggle, that he was a person of incredible value with the power, potential, and presence of the Spirit enabling us to change the world in partnership with God. What Jesus did is exactly what God invites us to do. Bring your questions, what challenges or may confuse you. Bring your wisdom and all of who you are. We are on a journey into the wilderness to discover who we are, who we can be, and what we can do.

Grandpa Jerry and St. Paul - Down Home Story

Grandpa Jerry Williams was a great admirer of Saint Paul and would not have invoked the name of the revered apostle deliberately to frighten the wits out of a St. Louis drummer. Besides, Grandpa had to replace the church-yard gate and repair the steeple.

"What did Paul say?"
What Paul said on the subject usually took a solid hour, or a bit more, to relate. Grandpa didn't get many opportunities to atone for his youthful disobedience to God's call, so he made the most of every one.

Despite Grandpa Jerry's scriptural verbosity, he was an imposing figure in the pulpit. He was a large man, tall, with a wild crop of bushy white hair. When he got wound up about Paul, he commanded attention. He voice boomed, and he emphasized his words with thumps on the pulpit.

Folks allowed as how the regular-ordained pastors were easier to take, week-end-week-out. Still, a good dose of Saint Paul now and then purged the soul.

The spiritual home for that little country congregation was about five miles from town. As was the custom, it was left unlocked so passersby could enter for mediation or shelter.
Grandpa Jerry's farm was nearby, and he often went there in the evening, after chores, to look after the church. After mending a window pane, or mowing the grass in the graveyard out front, he would commune with God in the empty sanctuary.

It was on such an occasion during Lent that Grandpa Jerry and the St. Louis salesman encountered each other briefly. Grandpa went to the church that evening to sweep the floor and make sure the hymnals were evenly distributed for Easter Sunday. This done, he lingered to think and pray.

Catholic Social Teaching

What is Catholic Social Teaching?
Catholic Social Teaching (also known as Catholic Social Doctrine) sums up the teachings of the Church on social justice issues. It promotes a vision of a just society that is grounded in the Bible and in the wisdom gathered from experience by the Christian community as it has responded to social justice issues through history.

Three Elements:
The social teachings are made up of three different elements: principles for reflection; criteria for judgment; and guidelines for action.
The principles for reflection apply across many different times and places, but the guidelines for action can change for different societies or times. Uniform guidelines for action wouldn’t work because societies are so different from one another, and they are always changing over time creating new situations with different problems and possibilities.
The criteria for judgment may be thought of as ‘middle axioms’ mediating between the highly authoritative but necessarily general and abstract principles for reflection, and the details of the concrete social reality. They are less authoritative than the principles for reflection but more so than the guidelines for action.
Guidelines for action are always dependant on contingent judgments and the information available through human knowledge. There is frequently scope for legitimate differences of opinion among believers on a range of social justice issues.

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Catholic Church

The Catholic Church has been in existence on the earth longer than any other Christian denomination. The Catholics can trace the Pope’s and the Catholic Church’s authority back to Peter at the time of Jesus Christ. Most other Christian churches broke away from the Catholic Church at one point in time or another. But, they still retain many of the traditions and beliefs of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church defines its mission as spreading the message of Jesus Christ, found in the four Gospels, administering sacraments that aid the spiritual growth of its members and the exercise of charity. To further its mission, the Church operates social programs and institutions throughout the world. These include schools, universities, hospitals, missions and shelters, as well as Catholic Relief Services, Caritas Internationalism and Catholic Charities that help the poor, families, the elderly and the sick.

The Catholic Church rests on a foundation of four basic beliefs or tenets. These beliefs are: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Here are brief definitions of the beliefs to make them clearer:

One: One stands for the one true gospel of Jesus Christ. Although there are many principles within the gospel, there is only one true gospel and one true Church as Jesus Christ set it up. It also stands for the one body of Jesus Christ.

Holy: Holy means that the Catholic Church is perfect, pure and sanctified. Although the members and even the leadership are not perfect the church itself is perfect.

Catholic: The word Catholic can be traced back to the Greek word “katas” which means universal or whole. If you were to look at the statement of beliefs for some Protestant religions not just the Catholic Church, you would find the term “catholic” in them as well. When Jesus Christ was on the earth, he commanded his followers to take the gospel to the whole earth so that in theory all people would share one belief and faith.

Apostolic: Just as when Christ was on the earth, the Catholics set up a Church with apostles.

The Catholics in the world today number over 1 billion. The church is concerned that it is not growing as fast as some of the Protestant and other religions.

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Catholic Religious Jewelry

Catholic jewelry has a long and rich history. It has taken on many forms and many meanings over the millennia. From the hidden meanings of anchors and Ichthys, to the development of the crucifix in the 5th century A.D., Catholic jewelry has played a large part in the faith of millions. The cross is one of the earliest and most widely recognized Christian symbols. The use of the cross as a Christian symbol starts with Christ Himself. Since, through His death, Christ sanctified the very implement of His torture, the cross has come to signify His victory over death and sin.

Early Catholic Jewelry
While the cross has always been the most important Christian symbol, it was not openly used as such until the 4th century A.D. Early Christians feared persecution for their faith, and so developed several symbols that were not easily recognized as Catholic jewelry in order to recognize each other. The two most prevalent of these symbols were the anchor and the Ichthys. The Ichthys, two intersecting arcs resembling the profile of a fish, was probably used in Catholic jewelry as a reference to Christ as “the fisher of men”. The anchor, or mariners cross, was used in Catholic jewelry as a symbol of hope based in the faith in Christ. By using these forms of Catholic jewelry early Christians were able to avoid persecution.

The cross did not become openly used in Catholic religious jewelry until around the 3rd century A.D., when the emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome. Since then the cross has become the most significant of Christian symbols, and has been widely used in art and Catholic religious jewelry.

The Cross and The Crucifix
It was not until the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the 4th century A.D. that the cross became openly and widely used in Catholic jewelry. More than fifty variants of the cross would later develop, but the four most important were: The Latin Cross, The Greek Cross, The Tau Cross & The Saint Andrews Cross.

The Latin cross is a cross with a long vertical bar intersected slightly above center by a shorter horizontal bar. The Latin cross with the body of Christ, or crucifix, is used by the Catholic Church as a representation of Christ’s sacrifice, while the Latin cross left blank is used by the Protestants as a representation of Christ’s resurrection; The Greek cross, a cross with equilateral arms; The Tau cross, a cross in the shape of the letter T and The Saint Andrews cross, a cross shaped like the letter X. The crucifix, a Latin cross with the body of Christ (corpus) and the inscription INRI or “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” upon it, did not become prevalent in Catholic jewelry until the 5th century A.D. Whereas the Protestant churches use a Latin cross left blank to symbolize the Resurrection, the Catholic Church uses the crucifix to symbolize the sacrifice of Jesus.

Catholic Charities & Catholic Medals

Traditionally, a charitable trust is any kind of a private, non-profit, philanthropic, human health and welfare organization. They are mostly found in the fields of education, religion, health, wealth, government or any other areas that benefit communities. Nonprofit organizations work for the benefit of human welfare, and do not make a personal profit.

Catholic charities are charitable trusts run mainly by the Catholic church. These charities work to improve the living conditions of the poor people. Needy people are treated with equal love and care, irrespective of their religion, sex, age, race, color, or origin. These charities try to provide steady employment with good wages for people who need the jobs. They try to protect the people from racial discriminations and prejudices. Since these issues have an intergenerational impact, Catholic charities try to protect the families across the age groups.

Catholic charities usually depend on donations from affluent citizens. This money is used to provide a better life to the poor and the needy of the country. Catholic charities try and ensure that all people in the community are cared for. They do the best they can with the income that they get through donations. Catholic charities strive to unite and mobilize a growing number of Catholic institutions, individuals and persons of good faith. Their goal is to maximize the church's influence on issues of poverty, drug abuse, unemployment and women and child welfare. Most Catholic charities are affiliated with Catholic Charities USA, the largest private human service network in the United States.

Medals are metal emblems representing a particular feature. Archeologists substantiate that the medals were used during the ancient periods in history. Catholic medals are used to symbolize the faith and devotion to God. They are the medals which represent unique beliefs and practices of the Catholics. The medals have gained much popularity among both Catholics and non-Catholics. However, the medals do not advocate any superstitions. The Catholic teaching preaches that the medals have no inbuilt magical power but instead it only inspires the need of devotion.

Catholic medals are generally used to remind the divinity of God. The medals include several categories according to the purpose of their use. Some medals are just souvenirs, which include memorial of certain persons, important events, places, etc.

The various categories of the medals can be stated as follows: Jubilee medals, papal medals, special occasion medals, etc. are included in the commemorative medals. Certain medals are expressions of religious prayers for blessings and protection. This group includes Jesus Christ medals, Virgin Mary medals, Eucharistic medals, etc. Patron saint medals are another category of catholic medals which characterize saints, the mediators for communication with God. Some other medals feature biblical events. The angel medals and crucifixes are also included as Catholic medals.

These medals may be used as religious jewelry. These valuable possessions can be pendants on chains worn around the necks or pinned to the dress. Most of the believers give an important position to the medals in their home, vehicle or office since the medals are a sign of God. They are considered as suitable gift choices which bring good luck and for adding to a collection. The value of a Catholic medal increases with age. Vintage medals are very costly.

Catholic Pilgrimages

A pilgrimage is any religiously motivated trip to some site which is regarded as sacred or otherwise religiously significant. Common sites for pilgrimages are those associated with saints, their relics, or other important religious figures. The term "pilgrimage" comes from the Latin peregrinus, which means "foreigner."

Catholic Pilgrimages were first made to sites connected with the birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Surviving descriptions of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land date from the 4th century, when pilgrimage was encouraged by church fathers like Saint Jerome. Pilgrimages also began to be made to Rome and other sites associated with the Apostles, Saints and Christian martyrs, as well as to places where there have been apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

The second largest single pilgrimage in the history of Christendom was to the Funeral of Pope John Paul II after his death on April 2, 2005. An estimated four million people traveled to Vatican City, in addition to the almost three million people already living in Rome, to see the body of Pope John Paul II lie in state.

World Youth Day is a major Catholic Pilgrimage, specifically for people aged 16-35. It is held internationally every 2-3 years. In 2005, young Catholics visited Cologne, Germany. In 1995, the largest gathering of all time was to World Youth Day in Manila, Philippines, where four million people from all over the world attended.

The major Catholic pilgrimages are to:

• The Holy Land, location of many events in the Old Testament and New Testament:
• Jerusalem, site of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus.
• Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus and King David.
• Nazareth, hometown of Jesus.
  
• Rome on roads such as the Via Francigena. Site of the deaths of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and other early martyrs.


• Lourdes, France. Apparition of the Virgin Mary. The second most visited Christian pilgrimage site after Rome.


• Istanbul, Turkey, Former capital of the Byzantine Empire and the see of one of the five ancient Patriarchates.

Pilgrimages

Unitours - The Leader in Christian tours and pilgrimages worldwide The Holy Land, Israel, Greece, Italy, Central Europe and England.

Unitours is an international tour operator in continuous operation and under the same management since 1957. Headquartered in Purchase, NY, USA. We maintain our offices and staffs in Tel Aviv; Lucerne; London; Athens; plus a large experienced staff in the United States.

As specialist in Christian group travel, we are uniquely qualified to provide you and your group with a wonderful pilgrimage to Europe and the Middle East.

Catholic Life

Catholic life

The word "catholic" without its religious context, means universal, concerning all humanity, free from prejudice, liberal. According to this definition, I am definitely catholic.

It is proven that Catholics are true follower of Jesus. They follow all teaching lesion of Jesus They seek forgiveness of their sins and follow the example and teaching of Jesus. They believe that Jesus has provided seven sacraments which give Grace from God to the believer.

If a person dies in unrepeated mortal sin, It means he loses god’s promise and deserve to Hell. But if follower regrets his seen and bad action and scarify for that before a death then he find purification and get Heaven.

Catholic believe that god always take care for entire world. Catholics always take part in church through prayers and doing spiritual disciplines such as fasting and pilgrimage.

Catholic differentiates prayers in four different way.
1) Adoration,
2) Thanksgiving,
3) Contrition,
4) Supplication
Catholic believes that Prayer for everyone, even for enemies and persecutors is a Christian duty. Mother of Jesus, the Virgin Mary is also considered to be the spiritual mother of all Catholics.