Tower Topics ~ Fall 2000

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Bishop Raymond Boland leads 230 on Jubilee pilgrimage to Conception Abbey

From the moment they walked in the front doors of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Bill and Debbie Carothers felt at home.

“It’s so welcoming here,” Debbie said following Mass. “It feels like we are supposed to be here.”

The Carothers and their three children, of St. Therese Parish in Kansas City, were among the more than 230 people who traveled to Conception Abbey July 1 for a pilgrimage led by Bishop Raymond Boland of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The Carothers said they came partly to see the renewed basilica, but mostly for their children.

“Families today need the Holy Spirit more than ever,” Debbie said. “We’re very happy to be here. I’d like to make this an annual event.”

Bill said the long drive from the city only enhanced the experience.

“You drive through all the natural scenery,” he said, “and then, bam! it’s there. It’s really quite impressive.”

Dressed in blue vestments honoring Mary, Bishop Boland in his homily reminded his audience that a pilgrimage is “not just going to a place, but coming back into one’s heart, a conversion.

“We make a pilgrimage because we want to get in touch with the transcendent, to have some part of the eternal,” the bishop said. “It is a search for insight into the belief that our destiny is to be completed – as it began – with God.”

While there are many major places of pilgrimage throughout the world – Rome, the Holy Land and Fatima to name only a few – Bishop Boland noted that there are also “millions of little pilgrimages – a visit to spend time in prayer in your local church, a walk through a cemetery to place flowers on the grave of a relative or friend.”

Simply remembering that God is at the center transforms a journey, no matter how small, he said.

“Journeying can be frivolous and travel can broaden the mind,” he said. “But a pilgrimage must touch the soul. We may not know it, but God is the spiritual director. He calls, prompts and waits for the act of faith, the ‘I believe!’, the ultimate embrace of love.”

The daylong pilgrimage included time for the sacrament of reconciliation and a visit to the monastery of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in nearby Clyde.

Over lunch, Kansas Citians Gene and Helen Heart and their grown daughter Micki Clark, were, like the Carothers, already discussing turning an abbey pilgrimage into an annual family event.

“We enjoy getting out in the country and seeing God’s blessings in a different light,” Helen said. “I’m going to take back with me memories of a spiritual experience, of celebrating Mass with the bishop and the monks, and of meeting a lot of beautiful people.”

Bro. Blaise Bonderer visits with (left to right) Leo Hart,
an unidentified woman, Anne Hart, and Catherine Garr,
Bro. Blaise's sister.

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