Organizer plans 13-hour trek on Divine Mercy Sunday
By Agnieszka Krawczynski
The B.C. Catholic
A small group of bold pilgrims is preparing to make a 50-kilometre trek from Chilliwack to Mission on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 3.
It will be the first pilgrimage on foot ever made from St. Mary’s Parish to Westminster Abbey, as far as organizer Theresa Szezepaniak can tell.
“We recognize it’s a significant and a rather heroic distance,” she said.
The 13-hour walk will begin at St. Mary’s Parish at 5 a.m. Szezepaniak said it’s a courageous way to mark a significant feast day, Divine Mercy Sunday, during the Jubilee Year of Mercy.
“This is really in response to the Pope’s call for the Jubilee Year,” she said, pointing out that Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, designated Westminster Abbey a pilgrimage site on that occasion.
“In some way it does show unity with the whole Catholic Church because there will be other pilgrimages, I’m sure, on that day, but also because it’s Divine Mercy Sunday,” an “enormous” celebration in the Church.
Pilgrims will pray the rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet on the way and stop at a few checkpoints for water and food. They plan to arrive at the abbey before 6:30 p.m., and conclude with Mass.
“It’s an invitation to every single soul in the archdiocese,” said Szezepaniak. Those who do not have the strength or time to walk the entire distance are welcome to join one leg of the trip or appear in time for Mass April 3.
She also invites the ill or those in wheelchairs to join the pilgrimage in prayer or to travel the final few metres with the pilgrims through the entrance of the abbey.
“It will be a blessing if the church is packed to the gunwales!”
More information is available from Szezepaniak at tszeze@gmail.com or 604-819-1589.Z
