Reunions are quite common: family reunions, high school class reunions, unexpected meetings with someone from one’s past, college homecoming weekends, and so on. When we gather at the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at Mt. St. Macrina over the Labor Day weekend this year for the 90th Pilgrimage, it can be said that this, too, is a time of reunion.
On the obvious level, many of the people who have come have not seen each other since the last Pilgrimage. For them it is a time of renewing a friendship or of deepening an acquaintance, a sharing of the happenings in their lives since they last met. In the very early days of the Pilgrimage, many Pilgrims were immigrants not so long removed from their European homes. For them it truly was a reunion with family members who had settled in different, even distant, parts of America. Tears and emotion often were the norm as they prepared to board their buses to return home knowing they would not see each other until the next Pilgrimage.
Today, when technology can keep us together in close contact, there is still the joy and excitement of once again actually spending time with those who are usually only with us at this special event, our Pilgrimage.
Of course, by our prayer and our presence, we can become more reunited too with Our Lord and His Mother in a deeper way. Receiving the mysteries of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, participating in the prayer of the Divine Liturgies and other services, spending time in private prayer, visiting the Shrine and the other shrines, and even holding a candle while walking in procession or by watching it go by can strengthen and help us to grow in our relationships with them.
Every Pilgrimage is a special event with unique blessings. That this Pilgrimage this year is the 90th one gives us consideration of the number beyond counting of everyone: Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Religious, and Laity who, over that span of time walked these grounds, prayed, sang, and were blessed to be there united and reunited with each other just as we will be. Please come to share the blessings that you and your presence bring.