RS5Christianity: Pilgrimage, Festivals and the Church in the World

A pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place, made as an act of worship and devotion. The journey itself is part of the experience, not just the arrival.

• Places: Jerusalem and Bethlehem (where Jesus lived, died and, Christians believe, rose again); Rome (where Peter and Paul died, and the Pope’s home); Lourdes; Iona; Walsingham in Norfolk; Taizé in France; Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
• Reasons Christians go: to feel closer to God in a place where they believe God has acted; to strengthen their faith; to pray for healing or for help with a problem; to say thank you or sorry to God; to spend time away from daily life to reflect; to meet other Christians.
• Not compulsory: pilgrimage is a personal choice for Christians. This is a key difference from Hajj, which Muslims who are able must make once in their life.
• Some Christians, especially some Protestants, think pilgrimage isn’t needed, because God can be met anywhere, and the money could help people in need. Others see the whole of life as a pilgrimage towards God.

Pilgrimage

A journey to a holy place, made as an act of worship and devotion.

Pilgrim

A person who goes on a pilgrimage.

Lourdes is a town in south-west France, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Millions of pilgrims visit every year, most of them Catholics.

• Why it is holy: in 1858, a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, said that the Virgin Mary appeared to her eighteen times in a grotto (a small cave) by the river. The lady called herself ‘the Immaculate Conception’, asked for a chapel to be built and showed Bernadette a spring of water. Bernadette later became a nun and was made a saint in 1933.
• Healing: many sick and disabled pilgrims come hoping for healing. They bathe in or drink the spring water. The Lourdes Medical Bureau investigates claimed cures, and the Catholic Church has officially recognised only 72 as miracles (the latest in April 2025).
• What pilgrims do: pray at the grotto; light candles; attend Mass; join the evening torchlight procession, singing and praying the rosary, and the Eucharistic procession, in which the sick are blessed.
• Volunteers: many young people and adults go to Lourdes to help the sick pilgrims, pushing wheelchairs and helping in the baths.
• Why it matters: pilgrims say that even without a physical cure they find peace, strength and hope; it deepens devotion to Mary and shows care for the sick.

Lourdes

A pilgrimage town in France where Bernadette Soubirous said she saw visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858; known for claimed healings.

Grotto

A small cave; at Lourdes, the place of Bernadette’s visions.

Iona is a small island off the Isle of Mull, in the Inner Hebrides of western Scotland.

• History: St Columba sailed from Ireland and founded a monastery on Iona in 563. Monks from Iona spread Christianity across Scotland and northern England.
• The Iona Community was founded in 1938 by George MacLeod, a Church of Scotland minister. Trainee ministers and craftsmen rebuilt the ruined abbey buildings together. Today it is an ecumenical community (open to all denominations), working for peace, justice and a simple way of life.
• What pilgrims do: stay in the abbey for a week; share meals and chores; join morning and evening worship; walk the island on a pilgrimage route, stopping to pray at holy places; spend time in quiet reflection; discuss issues such as poverty, peace and the environment.
• Why it matters: pilgrims go to find peace away from busy lives, to pray, to meet Christians of other traditions and to think about how to live their faith at home.
• The contrast: Lourdes is busy, mainly Catholic, and focused on healing and Mary; Iona is quiet, ecumenical, and focused on prayer, community and social justice.

Lourdes and Iona: two contrasting pilgrimages

Iona

A Scottish island where St Columba founded a monastery in 563; now home to the ecumenical Iona Community.

Ecumenical

Bringing Christians of different denominations together.

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus. Most Christians in Britain celebrate on 25 December; many Orthodox Christians celebrate on 7 January, because their churches follow an older calendar.

• Meaning: Christmas celebrates the Incarnation, the belief that God became human in Jesus. John’s Gospel says, ‘The Word became flesh and lived amongst us’ (John 1:14, World English Bible). The birth stories are in Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2.
• Advent: the four weeks before Christmas are a time of preparation. Many churches light a candle on an Advent wreath each Sunday.
• Celebrations: nativity plays; carol services; Midnight Mass or a late-night Communion on Christmas Eve; church services on Christmas Day; Christingle services, where children are given an orange with a candle (the orange stands for the world, the candle for Jesus as the light of the world).
• Giving: presents recall the gifts of the wise men and, Christians say, God’s gift of Jesus. Many churches collect for charities, open their doors for Christmas lunches, or help homeless people.
• Importance in Britain today: Christmas Day is a public holiday and church attendance is much higher than usual. Many people celebrate it as a cultural or family festival without religious belief, and some Christians worry that its religious meaning is lost in shopping and presents.

Christmas

The festival celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Incarnation

The belief that God became human in Jesus.

Advent

The four weeks of preparation before Christmas.

Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, which Christians believe is the most important event in history. It falls in March or April, and many Orthodox churches often celebrate it on a later date.

• Lent is about 40 days of preparation, starting on Ash Wednesday (when some Christians receive a cross of ash on the forehead). Christians may fast, give something up, pray more or give to charity. Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) is the day before.
• Palm Sunday: Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem; many churches give out small palm crosses.
• Maundy Thursday: the Last Supper. Some churches wash people’s feet, as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, and remember his ‘new commandment’ to love one another (John 13:34).
• Good Friday: Jesus’ crucifixion. Services are quiet and solemn; some churches hold a procession of witness through the streets behind a cross; many people eat hot cross buns.
• Easter Sunday: joyful services, often at sunrise; flowers return to churches; at the night-time Easter Vigil, a large Paschal candle is lit as a sign of the risen Christ. Orthodox Christians hold a midnight service where candles are lit one from another and people greet each other with ‘Christ is risen!’
• Easter eggs stand for new life and the empty tomb.
• Why it matters: Christians believe the resurrection shows Jesus defeated sin and death and offers eternal life. Paul wrote, ‘If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith also is in vain’ (1 Corinthians 15:14, World English Bible). Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays in England and Wales.

From Lent to Easter Sunday

Easter

The festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.

Lent

About 40 days of preparation for Easter, through prayer, fasting and giving.

Holy Week

The week before Easter Sunday, remembering Jesus’ last days.

Paschal candle

A large candle lit at the Easter Vigil as a sign of the risen Christ.

• The Church means the people of God, the Body of Christ, not just a building. Christians believe they should serve their local community as Jesus served others.
• Food banks give emergency food to people who cannot afford it. Trussell (known until 2024 as the Trussell Trust), a Christian charity, supports a UK network of food banks that gave out emergency food from more than 1,600 locations in 2025, many of them in churches. People are usually referred by a professional such as a doctor, school or advice centre. Other food banks are run independently, often by churches.
• How Christians help: donating food or money; volunteering to sort and give out food; offering church halls; campaigning about the causes of poverty.
• Street Pastors began in London in 2003, set up by the Ascension Trust. Trained volunteers from local churches go out in town centres, mainly late on Friday and Saturday nights. They listen to people, help anyone vulnerable get home safely, give out water, flip-flops and foil blankets, clear away broken glass and work with the police. They do not preach unless someone asks about their faith.
• Other local work: parent and toddler groups, youth clubs, lunch clubs for older people, night shelters, debt advice, warm spaces in winter.
• Why: Jesus taught that helping the hungry, the stranger and the sick is helping him (Matthew 25:35-40); the Good Samaritan helped a stranger in need (Luke 10:25-37); James taught that faith without action is dead (James 2:17).

Three areas of the Church’s work

Food bank

A place where people in need can collect emergency food, often run by or supported by local churches.

Street Pastors

Trained church volunteers who care for vulnerable people on town streets at night.

• Mission means being ‘sent out’: the duty of Christians to spread the gospel (the good news about Jesus) and to serve others.
• Evangelism means preaching the gospel to bring people to faith in Jesus.
• The Great Commission: after his resurrection Jesus told his followers to ‘make disciples of all nations’ (Matthew 28:19-20, World English Bible). In Acts 1:8 he says they will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.
• Methods today: the Alpha course (developed at Holy Trinity Brompton, a London church: a meal, a talk and open discussion about the Christian faith); starting new churches (church planting); Fresh Expressions of church, such as café church or Messy Church for families; online services and social media; street evangelism; missionaries working abroad; and the example of Christians’ own lives (Matthew 5:16).
• Church growth means more people becoming Christians and joining churches. Most of the world’s Christians now live in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where many churches are growing fast.
• In Britain, the Census 2021 found that 46.2% of people in England and Wales described themselves as Christian, the first time it fell below half (59.3% in 2011). Some churches are growing, including many Pentecostal and Black-majority churches and churches started by migrants.
• Why Christians want the Church to grow: to obey the Great Commission; they believe the gospel brings salvation and eternal life; to share God’s love; more members means more help for the community. In Acts, ‘the Lord added to the assembly day by day those who were being saved’ (Acts 2:47, World English Bible).

Mission

Being ‘sent out’: the Christian duty to spread the gospel and serve others.

Evangelism

Preaching the gospel to bring people to the Christian faith.

Great Commission

Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20).

Church growth

An increase in the number of Christians and church members.

Reconciliation means restoring friendly relationships after conflict or disagreement. Christians believe God reconciled people to himself through Jesus, and gave them ‘the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Corinthians 5:18, World English Bible).

• Why Christians work for reconciliation: Jesus said peacemakers are blessed (Matthew 5:9); he taught people to be reconciled with others before offering gifts to God (Matthew 5:23-24) and to forgive ‘seventy times seven’ times (Matthew 18:22); Christians believe Jesus’ death reconciled humans with God, so they should bring people together too.
• Reconciliation can also be personal: Catholics receive the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) to be reconciled with God and the Church.

Reconciliation

Restoring friendly relationships after conflict or disagreement.

Corrymeela

A Christian community in Northern Ireland that brings divided groups together.

Persecution is hostility and ill-treatment because of who someone is or what they believe. For some Christians around the world it ranges from discrimination at work or school to prison, violence and even death.

• In the Bible: the first Christians were persecuted. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, prayed for the people stoning him (Acts 7:59-60). Jesus said those persecuted for doing right are blessed (Matthew 5:10-12).
• Prayer: churches pray for persecuted Christians, and for the persecutors too, as Jesus taught: ‘pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you’ (Matthew 5:44, World English Bible).
• Practical help: charities such as Open Doors and Release International provide food, shelter, legal help, trauma care and Bibles, and support the families of Christians in prison.
• Campaigning: Christians write to governments and MPs, raise cases with international bodies and raise awareness (for example, ‘Red Wednesday’, when churches and buildings are lit up red).
• Welcoming refugees who have fled persecution.
• Persecuted Christians themselves often respond by staying faithful, meeting secretly if they must, and forgiving those who harm them, following Jesus’ example. Some believe persecution strengthens the Church.
• Why: Paul taught that the Church is one body, so ‘when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it’ (1 Corinthians 12:26, World English Bible); Christians are told to remember those in prison and those who are ill-treated (Hebrews 13:3).
• Christians also speak up for people of other faiths and none who are persecuted, because they believe everyone is made in God’s image.

Persecution

Hostility and ill-treatment because of someone’s identity or beliefs; some Christians face it for practising their faith.

Martyr

A person who is killed because of their faith.

You need to know the work of one of these three charities. They do similar work, so learning one well and the others briefly is enough.

• Emergency relief (short term): food, clean water, shelter and medicine after disasters such as floods and earthquakes, or for people fleeing conflict.
• Long-term development: clean water and sanitation, training farmers, schools and health care, small loans to start businesses, so communities can support themselves.
• Campaigning for justice: on issues such as fair trade, debt, climate change and the causes of poverty.
• They help people of any religion or none, and they don’t make help depend on converting people to Christianity.
• Why Christians support them: love your neighbour (Mark 12:31); the Good Samaritan helped someone from a different group (Luke 10:25-37); ‘what does the LORD require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?’ (Micah 6:8, World English Bible); 1 John 3:17 asks how God’s love can be in someone who sees a person in need and does nothing.

CAFOD

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development: the overseas aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Christian Aid

A Christian charity of British and Irish churches providing emergency and long-term aid.

Tearfund

An Evangelical Christian charity providing emergency and long-term aid, often through local churches.

Development aid

Long-term help so communities can support themselves.