| Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register,
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 MIDLAND, Ont. -There was nothing abstract or hard to understand about the Catholic spirituality on display along the back roads of Simcoe County south of Georgian Bay. It was as real as the blisters on the feet of hundreds of pilgrims who walked seven days to get to the Canadian Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland for the 26th time the first week of August.
Among this year’s pilgrims was Janina Dobosz, who has walked the route more than a dozen times but was kept off the road this year by pancreatic cancer. Instead of walking she drove the trucks which carry backpacks, tents and other equipment while the pilgrims walk unencumbered except for their guitars, flags and crosses. Her sons, Chris and Richard, loaded and unloaded the 20 tons of luggage each day for her and dedicated their pilgrimage to their mother.
Though the annual Walking Pilgrimage to Midland started out in a Polish parish in imitation of the annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in the old country, it is no longer an exclusively Polish event, said organizer John Zurakowski, who was one of the original 18 walkers in 1978.
“It’s become an evangelization tool for all communities,” said Zurakowski. “It’s become a spiritual event, as opposed to a Polish event. It’s allowing us to be catholic.”
Zurakowski means catholic in its broadest sense, and dreams of future pilgrimages with the ecumenical participation of non-Catholics.
This year 1,280 registered pilgrims arrived at the Canadian Martyrs’ Shrine on Aug. 10, along with a few more unregistered walkers. Many of those only walked the last day, but there were 692 registered pilgrims who made the entire seven-day walk. Zurkowski estimates the Polish-English split at about 60-40, with the largest English group starting out from Guelph.
For the second year 21 cyclists and their van driver added their number, riding from London, Ont., over six days.
The logistics of the walk are simple, but large scale. The walkers are accompanied by four moving vans, two of them carrying fresh water, 12 cargo vans and three first aid vans. The walkers start out from six different cities in southern Ontario and gradually coalesce into the massive group which fills the steps up to the Martyrs’ Shrine church.
Zurakowski estimates that half the English-speakers and three quarters of the Poles are under the age of 35, and many of them are teenagers.
“On the part of young people certainly there’s a deeper spirit of pilgrimage than on the part of adults,” said Basilian Father Tom Rosica, chief executive officer for Salt + Light TV.
Rosica headed up the organization which ran World Youth Day in 2002, and he attributes the giant youth events, the Taizé movement and a deepening understanding of the Second Vatican Council for the link between pilgrimage and Catholic identity which has grown among young people.
“There’s a great desire to be together,” Rosica said. “And one of the things that pilgrimage does is remove people from what’s familiar and lets them realize they’re not alone.”
Gabrielle Krasowski, 15, walked with her friends Alicja and Natalia Wirzykowski. The three started out from Holy Trinity parish in Windsor, Ont., and on the last day they carried with them crosses which had been carried by pilgrims in past years. Krasowski’s cross was five years older than her. Her sense of why she wanted to carry the heavy, ornate wooden cross was straightforward.
“Because Jesus carried a cross,” she said. “We all carry our crosses.”
Krasowski’s sense of pilgrimage is typical of what Rosica calls a grassroots spirituality which is growing in Canada.
“Jesus is the pilgrim par excellence,” said the priest. “The journey passages of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel particularly, that’s the model for me. It’s all the things that happen along the way, His eyes fixed on Jerusalem.”
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