Pilgrimage of the Seven Churches

On Saturday 6th November, we joined the ESM students and about 50 other young people on the Pilgrimage of the Seven Churches of Rome. It is a centuries-old pilgrimage made famous by good old St Philip Neri who wanted to keep the young ones out of mischief.

The pilgrimage was organised by the Centro San Lorenzo (our good buddy Bernard is the Director). It was advertised as, "20 kilometres, 7 churches, 2 shoes, zero euro". The map below gives some idea of how far we walked.

Map of Rome

We had marvellous weather, although it wasn't obvious at 6:30 in the morning when we had to leave home. Our meeting place was the Basilica of St Peter for Holy Mass at 7:00am. We were blessed enough to have the altar at the tomb of the great saint himself: St Peter! This was pretty special.


1. Basilica of St Peter

After this we went to the Centro San Lorenzo for some breakfast - coffee and croisants...mmmmmmmm. The first leg of our pilgrimage was the longest. It was a great opportunity to get to know the students better.


2. Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls

Before entering each church, we sang some hymns of praise and heard a bit about the history of the church (in english and italian). Then we had time to go inside and pray.


3. Minor Basilica of St Sebastian Outside the Walls

By the time we left this church, the sun giving us a warm 22 degrees, and it was time to eat. We had a picnic lunch in the gardens at the catacombs.


4. Basilica of St John Lateran


5. Minor Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem

Okay, we were starting to get pretty tired by this point. A few blisters were making themselves known. I had a little sleep on the steps outside the church while we were being told about the history of the place. I am sure it was very interesting.


6. Minor Basilica of St Lawrence


7. Basilica of St Mary Major
This is one of my favourite churches in the world - I take after my mother. She gave me a particular love for the statue of Our Lady Queen of Peace inside. If you are ever looking for it, it is on the left just past the first side chapel.

After this we were all pretty exhausted. It was about 7:00pm. We decided not to go out with some of the students who somehow, still had energy.

It was a great day - I highly recommend the pilgrimage to visitors to Rome!