Why Pilgrimage Still Matters Today: Weekly Reflections on Faith, Encounter, and Power of Pilgrimage.

At JC Journeys, we have spent many years creating pilgrimages and walking alongside those who set out in search of something more. Over time, one truth has become unmistakably clear: even a single pilgrimage can leave a lasting imprint on a person’s life. It reshapes how we see the world, how we understand faith, and often, how we understand ourselves.

Pilgrims on a JC Journey pilgrimage to Patmos

This week, we begin a series of reflections on the enduring power, beauty, and significance of pilgrimage in our modern lives. And there is no better place to begin than with what we might rightly call the first Christian pilgrimage: the road to Emmaus.

Every pilgrimage, near or far, is at its heart a journey to Emmaus. And whether we acknowledge it or not, every pilgrimage is fuelled by a similar hope:

To meet the risen Christ along the way.

Road to Emmaus, by Robert Zund, c.1877

Having shared in many pilgrimages, we know that something like the Emmaus story happens all the time, in the lives of many people. Think about your own experiences; How many times do we meet a stranger who speaks with such unexpected clarity and sense about things that really matter to us?

In such encounters, do we not find our hearts aflame, burning with the desire to hear more? Before long, a stranger becomes someone we’re reluctant to part from, whose very presence feels like water in a desert. They become someone we would gladly invite to share what little we have, and with whom we long to break bread with.

At the heart of the Emmaus story is the stranger.

Had the disciples not welcomed him into their journey, one of the Gospel’s most illuminating moments would be missing. And we would lose this essential truth about pilgrimage:

That pilgrimage is only possible when we remain open to the

unexpected people we meet along the way.

Maybe it’s only a brief moment: a small hello or a passing conversation. Or perhaps we’re given more: a shared meal, or days of journeying together. We open up, sharing hopes and dreams, fears and burdens. In time we part, yet the encounter remains, and it can sustain us for a lifetime.

We may not have physically met the risen Christ, and yet, in that simple communion with a stranger, He was present, walking beside us. In this way, the pilgrimage becomes something sacramental, and mere ideas about Jesus are replaced with a real and visceral experience of Jesus. 

Pilgrims walking the Via Crucis in Assisi on a JC Journey pilgrimage

In the Gospel account, Luke tells us that Cleopas walked to Emmaus with an unnamed companion. That detail feels intentional. It leaves space, an invitation, even.

Perhaps we are meant to place our own name there.

Perhaps we are being invited, even now, to step onto that same road. To become part of the first Christian pilgrimage, and to discover for ourselves what it means to encounter Christ along the way.

And if that is true, then pilgrimage is not just something that happened long ago. It is something still unfolding. One step, one encounter, one open heart at a time.