As parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Peace, we have participated in this Parish Family Pilgrimage to Torreciudad. It has been a fabulous opportunity to meet wonderful people who share the same Christian values.
We have shared a week of prayer in which we have learned that we are all called to be holy. As St. Josemaría Escrivá taught us, holiness can be found in small things, sanctifying work and the common activities of each day.
It has been a religious experience that will surely bring many fruits for all of us who have participated, for all who accompanied us with prayer, and for the Church in general.
It was a great joy to be able to visit Our Lady, offer her our thanks, and devoutly bring her the intentions that we had in our hearts.
It has been a very moving pilgrimage, we have unforgettable memories, and we hope that many more will join us on our next pilgrimage.
On April 6th, we embarked on the Parish Pilgrimage to Barbastro- Spain, the place where St. Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei, was born.
St. Josemaría Escrivá was born on January 9, 1902. We visited his birthplace, where he was born and lived his entire childhood until the age of 13.
There we were warmly received by a group of women who carry out Christian formational activities for the whole family, helping to keep alive the spirit of Opus Dei, as Saint Josemaría Escrivá wished.
Today it is the Entrearcos Cultural Centre, a training hub that promotes the Catholic faith and Christian values.
When Saint Josemaría was two years old, he was taken by his mother to thank the Virgin of Torreciudad for the healing of a serious illness.
When Josemaría grew up, and following his devotion to the Our Lady of Torreciudad, Opus Dei reached an agreement to restore the old chapel, with the aim of promoting devotion to the Blessed Virgin, taking care of pastoral attention and keeping it open to worship.
We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Torreciudad, to participate in the Mass celebrated by Father James in the Chapel of the Holy Family located within Torreciudad, to go to Confession, to participate in the activity called ‘Experience of the Faith’ and to live a day full of spiritual graces in a context of natural beauty through which God speaks to us.
The Virgin Mary appeared “in mortal flesh” on a column — popularly known as “the Pillar” — on 2 January in the year 40 in Zaragoza. Our Lady indicated that a church should be built to house the column she left as a testimony of her coming, and it was erected by the Apostle James the Great and the first seven converts of the city of the Ebro.
We feel very blessed to have visited Our Lady of the Pillar, to have participated in the Mass celebrated there by Father James, and to have learned about this city.
We visited the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion in Perdiguera, where St. Josemaría Escrivá served as curate shortly after his priestly ordination.
We went to visit Our Lady of Lourdes, France.
Upon arriving, we participated in the Holy Mass celebrated by Father James in Saint Patrick’s Chapel.
It was a wonderful day of prayer and spiritual reflection.
On the last day we went to visit Our Lady of Montserrat, located in the Monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia, Spain.
We participated in the Mass celebrated in the Catalan language.
Our Lady of Montserrat, or La Moreneta, is a wooden statue believed to date from the late 12th century.
The statue is notable for its dark complexion, which has been attributed to the accumulation of candle soot over the centuries, and also represents the universality of the Church.