Pilgrimage: An Amplified Definition

By Kameel Majdali

The desire to be a pilgrim is deeply rooted in human nature. To stand where those that we reverence once stood, to see the very sites where they were born and toiled and died, gives us a feeling of mystical contact with them and is a practical expression of our homage. And if the great men of the world have their shrines to which their admirers come from afar, still more do men flock eagerly to those places where, they believe, the Divine has sanctified the earth.¹

This chapter will propose an amplified definition of pilgrimage by exploring terminology, motive/practice, theology, and comparison/contrast. Motive/ Practice entails the traditional goal/desire and stereotypical activities of a pilgrim/tourist when visiting the holy sites/holy city. Theology is the actual doctrine and definition by Biblical exegesis. Contrast will offer a correlation of the theory and practice of modern Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem with that of ancient times, medieval pilgrimage to other holy cities, and the practice of pilgrimage of Muslims and Hindus.

Amplified Terminology

Alan Morinis calls pilgrimage:

A journey undertaken by a person in a quest of a place or state that he or she believes to embody a valued ideal.²

The sacred journey is the search or pursuit of the ideal whereas the sacred shrine is often the home for this ideal.³ Israeli tourism specialists Dr. Raymond Bar-On and Mr. Meyer Kaplan offer this comprehensive definition of classic, traditional pilgrimage:

A journey to one or more sacred spots, undertaken for religious motives, from which the traveller returns home is called a Pilgrimage...A shrine is a place where religious devotion is paid to a saint, martyr, or deity, hallowed because of its association with saintly persons and/or miraculous events. These shrines are goals of pilgrimages. The presence of a martyr or saint (at his/her birthplace, the place of his/ her activities and death) was often established by relics, which in a narrow sense are his or her mortal remains. The term also includes objects which have been in contact with the saint. Reverence for the relics rebounds to the honor of the saint, and expectation of favours may accompany the devotion. These pilgrimages are based upon the belief in the localized presence of a numinous or spiritual power.⁴

When it comes to their observation of Christian visits to Jerusalem, the city where both men reside, Bar-On and Kaplan offer a revised term "Pilgrimage-related tourism." Curiosity and interest in visiting the holy sites may have been stimulated throughout the world through Biblical events, current events, or pilgrim stories.

Pilgrimage-related tourism thus includes non-religious visits to pilgrim sites, possibly to watch the pilgrims and their ceremonies or to buy artefacts or souvenirs for the tourists' religious friends. Experience shared among believers produces a deep feeling of brotherhood for years afterwards. They become close to the locus of the pilgrimage object and experience feelings of satisfaction. The host country is brought into contact with the congregation and must make accommodations and concessions to the pilgrim.⁵

They believe that a Holy Land Tour "sees" the sites, while a pilgrimage "prays" at the sites. Are many Christian visitors on Holy Land tours, particularly Protestants and evangelicals, simply "pilgrim-related tourists" because they do not reverence relics, come with exclusively religious motives, or consciously practice religious devotion at the sacred sites? Or could they, in light of Biblical terminology, be more "tourist-related pilgrims?"

Scholars like Preston and Morinis and social anthropologists like the Turners and Glenn Bowman are in the embryonic stage of pilgrimage research. While anthropology in not a chosen methodology of this study (just as theology is not a part of theirs), some of their terminology will be mentioned.

1) Freedom from Social Structure: This temporarily releases the pilgrim from his or her normal routine and ties and enters a classless, egalitarian situation with fellow pilgrims.

2) Communitas: A favoured word of Turners', communitas describes the bonding and shared beliefs and experiences of the pilgrim party. Though together for only a short period, joint-experience among pilgrims can linger for a lifetime and reinforce fundamental beliefs and practices. Communitas is the spontaneous bonding of a person (pilgrim) outside his normal setting, with all its constraints, into a new, transient, and temporal egalitarian community. It is because this community is outside the pilgrim's normal societal structures that Turner calls pilgrimage "anti-structural," because he believes it can allegedly undermine the authority of the home church. Turner explains communitas in this way:

A relational quality of full unmediated communication, even communion, between definite and determinate identities, arises spontaneously in all kinds of groups, situations, circumstances. It is a liminal phenomenon which combines qualities of lowliness, sacredness homogeneity, comradeship. Bonds of communitas are undifferentiated, egalitarian, direct, extant, nonrational, existential. Communitas is spontaneous, immediate, concrete, not abstract.⁶

Communitas can be manifest in three forms: a) spontaneous/existential; b) normative; c) Ideological.⁷ Communitas, according to the Turners, can undermine the authority of the home church and therefore can be viewed with suspicion and apprehension by the local priest or pastor. In other words, it is "anti-structural" in influence. Critics counter this view by arguing that pilgrimage maintains and reinforces social boundaries and distinctions.⁸

3) Spiritual Magnetism of Pilgrimage Centres: This is the power of the holy site to draw pilgrims. A sacred shrine, or sacred land and its geography, can be a focal point of pilgrim devotion. Sites of famous events in the life of the holy person can become popular shrines that lure many adherents. For Christians, spiritual magnetism is connected with either Biblical events and geography, epiphanies of the divine, miracles, or more. Preston says that spiritual magnetism is not the emanation of holiness from the pilgrimage site, but rather comes from:

...human concepts and values, via historical, geographical, social, and other forces that coalesce in a sacred center.9

A reciprocal sacralization can be found in this process: the holy site attracts pilgrims and imparts some measure of holiness to them;

Pilgrimage Between the Poles
FAMILIAR		OTHER
Known	PILGRIMAGE	Mysterious
Human		Divine
Social		Ideal
Imperfect		Perfect
Mundane		Miraculous

the pilgrims through their corning and expressions of devotion, in turn impart a heightened sanctity to the shrine (indeed, we might ask, can a site sustain its sanctity without pilgrim visits?). Pilgrimage centres can also include those places where visions, dreams, and miracles occur.

Pilgrimage becomes the journey between the poles and, in the process, allows for some kind of mediation, accommodation, even resolution.¹⁰

4) Sacred Trace: James Preston coined this term for the study of religious movement, the visible mark or sign of a former presence or age of a person, thing, event or a path through the wilderness.¹¹ He borrowed the name and concept from nuclear physics, where the invisible structure of the atom becomes known and open to scrutiny by the traces left in other forms.

Tracing provides a unique methodology by making visible the invisible reality of pilgrimage. Preston justifies its usage by pointing out the pilgrimage is always in flux and tracing can help capture...

...the periodicity and flow of behaviour ascending in networks of increased rituals and cultural complexity toward the point of religiocultural integration.¹²

Pilgrimage is a constant circulation of ideas, experiences, and symbols. Due to the division of pilgrims by such things as time, space, background, tracing requires scholars to team up with the pilgrims at different times and levels to follow their trace. Preston contends that the trace is the source of spiritual magnetism of the shrine.¹³

When a pilgrim visits the shrine to which he or she is drawn, noticing and even participating in the epiphany at the shrine, he or she absorbs and transfers this trace of tradition to his home community.¹⁴ Sacred objects represent, if not facilitate, this transference.

5) Seasonal Pilgrimage: Pilgrimage may be a part of the religious calendar, such in the Old Testament pilgrimage feasts; Byzantine liturgical pilgrimages, or normative and routine visits to holy sites at holy seasons like Easter and Christmas.

6) Compulsory Pilgrimage: Mandatory pilgrimages like the three annual pilgrimage feasts to Jerusalem or the Muslim hajj to Mecca.

7) Efficacious Pilgrimage: Used to obtain worldly needs like healing and answers to prayer.

8) Pious Pilgrimage: Devotional visits in the spirit of Psalms 84 and 122. For the Christian, the goal is to walk where Christ walked and encounter the God who sacralises the city and land.

9) Wandering Pilgrimage: The restless and spiritually hungry individual goes on a journey with no preplanned objective to satisfy in particular.

10) Secular "Pilgrimage" The secular media has been an unwitting contributor to the broad and general application of the word "pilgrimage." Indeed, the media has used this word of visits to Elvis Presley's mansion called Graceland; to Anfield Club headquarters to mourn the death by crushing of ninety-five Liverpool fans at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield in April 1989; and of visits to famous battle sites by war veterans. Reader comments:

Indeed, a general examination of the world and concept of pilgrimage indicates that its scope runs far beyond the boundaries of visitors to shrines and holy sites connected with official religious traditions into areas far more concerned with the secular world, reaching into such apparently profane arenas as the worlds of sport and entertainment.¹⁵

Reader even suggests that Disneyland is "more than an amusement park." It is a sacred place because it evokes great anticipation, "exhilaration on arrival, vivid memories".¹⁶

Normative traditional Christian pilgrimage can be also defined by its motive, practice, and by viewing it in juxtaposition with ancient pilgrimage and modern non-Christian pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage Practice, Motives, Activities

Traditional, classical Christian pilgrimage is usually understood in terms of an ad hoc, popularised practice, spontaneously commenced but gaining routinization and institutionalisation over the years. Participants in an often communal and age-old practice, pilgrims are less interested in society and more in personal goals. Individual motives are as varied as the pilgrims themselves. Barber comments:

Pilgrimage...is ultimately of less concern to society than to the individual. Even on the mass pilgrimages to Mecca...each of the individuals who make up the crowd is in search of something that, by and large, concerns him alone, and these are spiritual rather than social goals.¹⁷

The following is a listing of potential pilgrim activities. Some are almost standard for all pilgrims, others may be more associated with the classical mode, whereas some may be purely optional or relevant only in modern times alone.

1) Visitation to Shrines: Primary, subsidiary, and even popular shrines (with no scriptural significance) are visited.

2) Devotional Activities: Individual and group activities repeat the disciplines of Christendom with prayer, intercession, meditation, and readings from Scripture. These are important pilgrimage practices.

3) To Meet Needs: Pilgrimage could be undertaken to find help for needs like health, finances, prayers for a loved one, or help during difficult times. These prayers could be with an important religious figure.

4) Seasonality: While occurring during most times of the year, Christian pilgrimage is particularly strong during prime holiday seasons like Christmas at Bethlehem and Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and/or the Garden Tomb.

5) Future Events: Particularly significant in evangelical circles, pilgrims want to view the places where future events will occur.18

6) Special Events: Christians can make a pilgrimage to coincide with the already mentioned religious holidays (Christmas, Easter), conventions, or conferences like the "Feast of Tabernacles," "Shavuot," and "Prayer Breakfasts."

7) Educational Activities: People come for short and long-term educational activities to study the Bible, history, archaeology, geography, or theology.

8) Fulfil Vows and Make Offerings: To satisfy a vow or promise to God, a Christian could make a pilgrimage.

9) Liturgy: Prescribed rites for public worship at holy sites, usually involving Scripture readings, the Eucharist, and, on occasion, processionals.

10) Visiting Holy Men/Women: This part of the pilgrim's itinerary is to seek blessing or instruction on holy living.

11) Souvenirs: Souvenirs or objects of devotion are acquired as a tangible reminder and proof of the pilgrimage, and to grant a vicarious participation of the experience to family and friends who stayed home. Procuring a souvenir obtains a symbol that brings identity, definition, and clarity. It helps convert given reality into experienced reality, and is an indispensable part of all experience.19 Some souvenirs, noted as secondary relics like oil, earth, water from the holy site20 could allegedly hold power for healing, signs, wonders.²¹

12) Remission of Sins: Particularly true in Catholic pilgrimage. Visiting shrines is viewed as a means of penance and finding grace to remit sins. Even today gaining a plenary indulgence at certain Jerusalem Christian holy sites is still possible.

13) Culmination of Life events: Upon reaching Jerusalem, the pilgrim considers his life's work over; pilgrimage is preparation for an honourable death. This is especially applicable to elderly Greek Orthodox pilgrims.

Edith Turner concludes:

Pilgrimage is a process, a fluid and changing phenomenon, spontaneous, initially unstructured and outside the bounds of religious orthodoxy. It is primarily a popular rite of passage, a venture into religious experience rather than into a transition to a higher status. A particular pilgrimage has considerable resilience over time and the power of revival. Pilgrims all over the world attest to the profundity of their experience, which often surpasses the power of words.²²

How pilgrimage can be a "popular rite of passage" without being a "transition to a higher status" is not made clear by Turner's definition. Nevertheless, her comment about "the profundity of their experience" is almost universal.

A Preliminary Theology of Pilgrimage

The concept of pilgrimage as a journey of religious volition or obligation to a sacred spot, such as Abraham's visit to Mount Moriah, is known from remote antiquity, though the Bible lacks a technical term for it.²³

The Latin peregrinus stems from the Biblical Hebrew and Greek. Two pairs of words are used to denote the pilgrim: the Hebrew speaks of ger while the koine Greek uses paroikos.

Ger or Gur is used eighty-eight times,²⁴ in the Old Testament. It means to "abide, be gathered, be a stranger, dwell, dwell (in/with), gather together, remain, sojourn, inhabit, surely, continuing."²⁵ Its root meaning is to live among those who are not (blood) relatives. A ger is not a citizen of the community and is thus excluded from the rights and privileges of community membership.²⁶

This lack of citizenship rights means the ger cannot enjoy inherent membership of the community but instead is dependent on the hospitality and protection of the host people. The patriarchs outside the promised land experienced this like Abram (Genesis 12:10) and Jacob (47:4) in Egypt and Isaac in Gerar (Genesis 26:3). Whatever their length of residence in Canaan, they were always considered sojourners (Exodus 6:4). This is even more remarkable because Isaac and Jacob were born in the promised land, the former having spent his entire life there. Harris' Theological Wordbook says:

In the case of the Patriarchs, however, they became 'protected' citizens in the promised land through the call of God (Gen 17:8; 20:1; 23:4)."²⁷

Mosaic law made provisions for the protection of resident aliens.²⁸ Apparently, ancient Israel did not always treat the stranger in the way the Old Testament suggested.²⁹ By the time of Jesus non-Israelites were viewed with great animosity.³⁰

From the word ger comes the term magur, which means "dwelling, pilgrimage, where they sojourn, wherein one is a stranger".³¹ It speaks of the patriarchs' dwelling place, the "land of their travels" or "...the land wherein they were strangers" as a place of pilgrimage.³² Job 18:19 refers to a man bereft of descendants "in his dwellings", as a temporary place of residence or pilgrimage, although it represents judgment. Even during times of anxiety and affliction, the psalmist turns God's statutes into songs in "the house of my pilgrimage."33 The word magur essentially suggests our life is transient and wholly reliant on God's grace, but through obedience to God we will have the hope of everlasting life.34 Dake defines magur as:

Temporary abode. A pilgrim was one who took a religious journey, submitting to many hardships and privations to attain his end. This was true of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.^35-36

The Greek word paroikos has a rich meaning. In a secular sense it refers to "neighbor, noncitizen, resident alien." In the Old Testament period it could mean a resident alien living in Israel. They received protection and some rights but were generally excluded from religious life. If they converted, then their religious rights and privileges were extended. Both the patriarchs and Israel are called paroikoi, not just when they were in foreign lands (Abram in Egypt, Jacob in Padan Aram, Moses in Midian), but also in the promised land, too, (I Chr 29:15; Ps 119:19) since God owns the whole earth, and all humanity are resident aliens.³⁷ In the New Testament paroikos occurs four times, usually in a quotation or allusion from the Old Testament.³⁸ Vine's says it means "a sojourning, to dwell as strangers."³⁹ A summary of its meaning is as follows:

In short, ger and paroikos mean "to live as a resident alien,"⁴⁰ like a permanent resident, a long-term foreigner who still lacks citizenship rights. Ger/Paroikos could be used of a non-Israelite, but the words often refer to the patriarchs and the physical descendants of Israel.⁴¹

Abraham was told by God:

The whole land of Canaan, where you are:

ISRAEL & THE CHURCH AS PAROIKOS
NATIONAL ISRAEL	THE CHURCH
Aliens in Egypt	Aliens on Earth
Citizens of Canaan	Citizens of Heaven
People of God	Ekklesia of God
Diaspora outside Canaan	Diaspora in the world
Holiness required	Holiness required
Earthly rights in Canaan	Heavenly rights on earth

now an alien (magur), I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."⁴² Jacob said to Pharaoh:

The years of my pilgrimage (magur) are a hundred and thirty.⁴³

1 Peter 1:17 adds:

And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning (paroikia) here in fear.

The second pair of words are toshab (Hebrew) and parepidemos (Greek), meaning a temporary resident alien. One translation of toshab is "sojourner". The word occurs fourteen times (seven in Leviticus 25) and refers to a temporary, landless wage earner. It describes Abraham's (Gen 23:4) and Israel's life in Canaan.⁴⁴ A toshab could not eat Passover or prevent his children from slavery (Lev 25:45) but could go to city of refuge (Num 35:15). So he had even less civil rights and freedom than a ger.

Parepidemos is used only three times in the New Testament and means "sojourning in a strange place" or as a noun "a sojourner or exile."⁴⁶ Richards says parepidemos refers "to one staying for a while in a place he cannot call home."⁴⁷ Parepidemoi resided less time in a place than paroikos and were less integrated into the civil and fiscal life of the adopted community.⁴⁸ The main idea is that this world must not influence Christians, since they are only strangers and pilgrims passing through. The earthly life is a diaspora and our true home is the "place of our election" (Heb 11:13).⁴⁹ Ultimately it means a sojourner on earth for those who call heaven home.⁵⁰

A modern counterpart of a toshab/ parepidemos is a visitor who receives a three to a six-month tourist visa, enjoying rights of protection but no civil rights; ger/'paroikos is the permanent resident alien who has the right to reside but very limited civil rights. Like ger/paroika, they also have a temporal or transient state. In 1 Peter 2:11 it states:

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers (paroikol) and pilgrims (parepidemoi), abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.

The Biblical idea is that the patriarchs, heirs of Canaan and of God's promises, were no more than magurim or permanent residents without citizenship rights in the land of promise. The Christian believer is considered by the New Testament to be a "citizen of heaven" who is an alien temporarily residing in this present world order; they are sojourning in the flesh awaiting their eternal home. Pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for the mortal or earthly lifespan.

Richards has this to say about the idea of "alien" as used in the New Testament:

The NT Epistles draw on the legal distinctions between Roman citizens and noncitizens to enrich the metaphor. Paul typically emphasizes the meaning of citizenship in God's kingdom, whereas Peter... (...a noncitizen)... and the writer of Hebrews stress the Christian's position as an alien in this present world. This situation in the empire helps us to understand implications of Jesus' teachings that his followers are to be in the world but not of it (Jn 15:18-19; 17:6-18). As aliens in this present world, Christians are vulnerable, without a basis to claim protection from, or rights under, an ungodly society.⁵¹

Hebrews 11:13 says:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims (parepidemos) on earth.

From this comes the idea of "pilgrimage," meaning that a citizen of another country sojourns in a holy land with a holy place, as a stranger in a strange land, to make contact with the roots of his or her faith and/or understand, apprehend, and/or appropriate his or her heavenly reward. Like Ellis Island to the Old World migrant of the United States, the pilgrim passes in transit through a holy land to understand and eventually obtain his or her future inheritance. Hebrews 11:16 encapsulates this sentiment:

But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

Fr. Jeffrey G. Sabosan writes:

If we can thus say that Abraham is the primordial journeyman-pilgrim par excellence, then we can surely also say that the Israelites-in-exile are the first pilgrim people par excellence.⁵²

If the Old Testament Israelites, designated to receive the "promised land" in this world were a pilgrim people, how much more the Christian Church, who are promised life in the world to come?

Sabosan argues that the notion of the pilgrimage-journey in the Old Testament is associated with shrines and sanctuaries. The patriarchs often built an altar or planted a grove at selected places (e.g. Bethel, Beersheba), made an offering, and called upon the name of the Lord. The children of Israel also had altars in different places of Canaan like Shiloh, Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba, sometimes called the "high places," and made regular visits there. Later Israelite worship became centralised at the Jerusalem Temple, but with the division of the kingdom between Judah and Israel, the latter established rival sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan. By the New Testament era Jewish pilgrim devotion had returned primarily to Jerusalem. Even with the destruction Jerusalem, the Roman victory in the First Jewish Revolt in A.D. 70, and the dispersion of the Jews, religious visits to Jerusalem did not end. Jews, Judeo-Christians, and Gentile Christians continued and increased their journeys to Aelia Capitolina, the Roman designation for Jerusalem (A.D. 135-313), and later the now Christian-controlled Jerusalem (A.D. 335 -614).

The Catholic-run Commission of Christian Pilgrimage defines pilgrimage as "a religious act" comparable to a "spiritual retreat" or "living catechesis". The catechetical and pious intentions have primacy over everything else and, as such, provide a living bond to the origins of the Christian faith.⁵³ The Catholic Enquiry Centre defines pilgrimage as a journey to a spot sanctified by Christ, Mary, or the saints.⁵⁴

While Protestant leaders and theologians discouraged special visits to places sanctified by saints, they still generally understood pilgrimage as a metaphor of our earthly life, strangers in a strange land, until we receive our heavenly reward.55 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and a famous hymn typify this:

GUIDE ME, O THOU GREAT JEHOVAH

PILGRIM THROUGH THIS BARREN LAND.

I AM WEAK, BUT THOU ART MIGHTY

HOLD ME WITH THY POWERFUL HAND.

Marian Tomaszewski says the Church is invited to take up the cross and follow Christ (Matthew 16:24), the New Moses. He will lead it on an eschatological pilgrimage to a heavenly promised land (Philippians 3:20) and holy city, the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2).

Consequently the Christian pilgrimage in its theological dimension stresses not any geographical site magically imprisoning the benevolence and presence of a divinity, but points out the redemptive event which surpasses any material reality.⁵⁶

It is noteworthy that the "journey" and "destination" are the ingredients of pilgrimage. No mention is made of any practices conducted at the sacred destination. The Bible describes the idea of our earthly life as a pilgrim, strangers in a strange land, en route to an eternal abode.⁵⁷ Given this broad understanding of pilgrimage from the source book of Christianity, it helps in labelling the journey of Christians today to the holy city of Jerusalem and their visits to holy sites as a pilgrimage as well. Morinis maintains this broad interpretation when he writes "Ideals of pilgrimage need not be in time and space"⁵⁸ therefore emphasising the sacred search of a wandering soul during his or her earthly life. As Malcolm Muggeridge says:

The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves to be at home here on earth. As long as we are aliens, we cannot forget our true homeland.⁵⁹

This article is an extract from chapter two of Pilgrimage: An Amplified Definition. Kameel Majdali is principal of Harvest Bible College, Melbourne, Victoria.

1 Alan Kendall, Medieval Pilgrims (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1970), 11.

2 Alan Morinis, ed. Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (Westport Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992), 4.

3 Ibid., 2.

4 Dr. R. Bar-On & M. Kaplan, "Unpublished paper,' (revised October 2, 1991), no page numbers.

5 Ibid.

6 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: An Anthropological Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), 250.

7 lbid.,193-94, 252.

8 John Eade & Michael Sallnow, ed., Contesting the Sacred: the Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London: Routledge, 1991), 5.

9 James Preston, "Spiritual Magnetism: An Organizing Principle for the Study of Pilgrimage," in Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, ed. Alan Morinis (Westport, Conn.: Greenwoord Press, 1992), 33.

10 Morinis, Sacred Journeys, 26.

11 Preston, "Spiritual Magnetism," 41.

12 Ibid., 40.

13 Ibid., 41.

14 Ibid.

15 Ian Reader & Tony Walter, eds., Pilgrimage in Popular Culture (London: The MacMillan Press, 1993), 5.

16 Ibid., 6.

17 Richard Barber, Pilgrimages (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1991), 2.

18 One example is the Mount of Olives, where Christ appears in victory (Zechariah 14:4).

19 Nelson Graburn, "Tourism: The Sacred Journey" in Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nd Edition, eds., Valene Smith (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 33.

20 Cynthia Hahn, "Loca Sanctae Souvenirs: Sealing the Pilgrim's Experience," in The Blessing of Pilgrimage, ed. Robert Ousterhout (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1990), 85.

21 Ibid, 93.

22 Mircea Eliade, editor-in-chief The Encyclopedia of Religion, s.v. "Pilgrimage" by Edith Turner.

23 The New Bible Dictionary, 1962 ed., s.v. "Pilgrimage."

24 Lawrence O. Richards, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words (Grand Rapids Ml: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985), s.v. "alien/aliens."

25 R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr., & Bruce Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Two Volumes) (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), s.v. "ger.'

26 Richards, Expository Dictionary, s.v. "alien/aliens."

27 Harris, Theological Wordbook, s.v. "ger."

28 Ex 22:21; 23:9; Lev 19:33-34; Dt 10:18-19; 24:14,17-18.

29 Jer 7:6; 22:3; Eze 22:7,29; Mal 3:5.

30 Mt 15:21-28; Mk 7:24-30; Jn 4:4-26; Ac 10:28 with 11:2-3; Gal 22:11-14

31 Ibid.

32 Genesis 36:7.

33 Psalm 119:54.

34 Harris, Theological Wordbook, s.v. "magur." See Hebrews 11:9-10,13-14,16.

35 Rev. Finis Dake, Dake's Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, Inc., 1981), margin note Genesis 47:9.

36 Ex 6:4; Ps 119:54; Heb 11:10-16; I Pet 2:11.

37 Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), s.v. "paroikos."

38 Acts 7; 13:16ff; Heb 11:9,13.

39 Vines Expository Dictonary of New Testament Words. Oliphants Ltd. 1952. s.v. "paroikos."

40 Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament s.v. "paroikos"

41 Ibid.

42 Genesis 17:8; other references to Abraham's journey to a strange land which he would inherit include Genesis 12:1 and 15:7.

43 Genesis 47:9

44 Lev 25:23,35; Ps 39:12,1 Chr 29:15.

45 Harris, Theological Wordbook of the O.T., s.v. "toshab."

46 Vine's Expository Dictionary, s.v. "sojourn."

47 Richards, Expository Dictionary, s.v. "alien/aliens."

48 The New Bible Dictionary, s.v. "pilgrimage."

49 Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the N. T. s.v. "paraped/mos."

50 Vine's Expository Dictionary, s.v. "pilgrim."

51 Richards, Expository Dictionary, s.v. "alien/aliens."

52 Jeffrey G. Sabosan, "A Theology of Pilgrimage," Holy Land 44 (Spring 1984): 14.

53 Pope John Paul II, a speech at the First World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Shrines and Pilgrimages, 28 February 1992. Issued by the Commission of Christian Pilgrimage.

54 Catholic Enquiry Centre,, "Catholic Living" Booklet Nineteen (Marouba NSW, 1984), 276.

55 Reader, Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, 4.

56 Marian Tomaszewski ofm, "Pilgrimage in Early Christianity," Holy Land 13 (Spring 1993): 16.

57 Some of the most common scriptures about being "strangers" and "pilgrims" are the following:

Gen 17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

Gen 23:4 I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

Psa 39:12 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

Psa 119:19 I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.

Acts 7:6 And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.

Acts 7:29 Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons.

I Pet 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

I Pet 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of (hem, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

58 Morinis, Sacred Journeys, 13.

59 Jim and Carol Plueddemann, Pilgrims in Progress: Growing Through Groups (Wheaton IL: Harold Shaw, 1990), 17.