On pilgrimage

When fair April, with its showers sweet,

Has pierced the drought of March to the root's feet
 …
When the West Wind, too, with its sweet breath
Has breathed new life—in every copse and heath—
Into each tender shoot, …
Then nature stirs them up to such a pitch

That folk all long to go on pilgrimage

.

And palmers tread new shores, strange strands,

Seek out far shrines, renowned in many lands,

And, especially from every shire's end

Of England, to Canterbury they wend
,
The holy blessed martyr there to seek,

Who has brought health to them when they were sick.

The prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales describes the urge that drives medieval pilgrims in England south to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. For uncountable years before and after that, the same urge has driven pilgrims to holy sites all over the world. We are drawn to visit places made sacred by the holy people who are or were there.

The image on our cover shows Elise Keeley in Spain last August for WYD11. Hundreds of thousands of young people made the pilgrimage to that country, and made numerous local pilgrimages on the way and while there. The spirit that drives us to make pilgrimage is still strong.

This desire to visit the sacred is continued today in our own country in the now twice-yearly pilgrimage along the Camino Salvado in Western Australia. See pp. 5-6 for an account of this Holy Way.