Pilgrimages are one of the oldest acts of devotion practiced by Christians.  Whether to the Holy Land to venerate the places linked with the life of the Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, or to the relics, shrines, graves, etc., associated with His friends, the saints and angels, pilgrimages are a way for Christians to escape the mundane world and encounter God’s Grace in a powerful way.  The reasons for going vary – to seek healing for a bodily or spiritual ailment, for guidance in life or help with a task, as an act of thanksgiving, or simply to be near to the All-Holy Trinity – but pilgrimages to holy sites themselves were a constant in Christendom.

Until modern times, that is.  Thanks to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and other revolutions, faith weakened, skepticism grew, and Christian pilgrimage fell out of favor.

However, man’s desire for a transcendent encounter outside the confines of his usual routine did not disappear.  But for its fulfilment, it was diverted to secular destinations:  an ancient monument, a well-known battlefield, the home of a famous statesman, a beautiful landscape, a giant sports stadium, and so on.

We see this at work even here at the South:  There is the Louisiana Music Trail and the Mississippi Blues Trail, the Louisiana Civil Rights Trail, various Halls of Fame, and others like them, upon or within which one can learn about and celebrate the various people involved in music, politics, etc.  And those are fine; we should honor people who have done particularly praiseworthy deeds or made great strides in the arts or contributed notably in some other way to well-being of society.

There are famous places on the existing routes like Haney’s Big House:

‘William Haney was a twentieth-century African American businessman in Ferriday, who operated Haney’s Big House, a café, bar, and nightclub that showcased Black artists from across the South, including performers like Ray Charles, Redd Foxx, and B. B. King’ (‘Haney’s Big House’, explorelouisiana.com);

And the Ardoin Statue in Opelousas:

‘One of southern Louisiana’s first great recording artists was Creole accordionist and singer Amédé Ardoin. At the time his records appeared, between 1930 and 1934, the terms “Cajun music,” “Creole music,” and “zydeco” were not in use, and zydeco as it is heard today had yet to evolve. Accordingly, there is some debate as to how Ardoin’s music should be classified. What is clear, however, is that Ardoin’s inspired musicianship, as expressed in a seamless, soulful blend of two-steps, blues, and waltzes, played a crucial role in forging these styles’ (‘Amédé Ardoin Statue’, explorelouisiana.com).

But these can only do much to nurture the human soul.  For that we must ascend to a higher spiritual plane.

To that end, thanks be to God, by drawing the attention of our French ancestors upon Himself, we have the makings of a pretty good Christian pilgrimage trail here in Louisiana.  It can be discerned by tracing a line through the parishes named after holy people or holy events, mostly in south Louisiana (St John the Baptist, Ascension, etc.; this map is helpful).  There are cities, too, like St Amant.

We can see the contrast between the secular pilgrimage and a potential Louisiana Christian pilgrimage by looking at a couple of potential sites, St Helena Parish and the city of St Amant in Ascension Parish.

St Amant receives her name from St Amandus of Elnon, a remarkable missionary in western Europe:

‘HE was born near Nantes, of pious parents, lords of that territory. At twenty years of age, he retired into a small monastery in the little isle of Oye, near that of Rhé. He had not been there above a year, when his father found him out, and made use of every persuasive argument in his power to prevail with him to quit that state of life. To his threats of disinheriting him, the saint cheerfully answered: “Christ is my only inheritance.” The saint went to Tours, and a year after to Bourges, where he lived near fifteen years under the direction of St. Austregisilus, the bishop, in a cell near the cathedral. His clothing was a single sack-cloth, and his sustenance barley-bread and water. After a pilgrimage to Rome, he was ordained in France a missionary bishop, without any fixed see, in 628, and commissioned to preach the faith to infidels. He preached the gospel in Flanders, and among the Sclavi in Carinthia and other provinces near the Danube: but being banished by King Dagobert, whom he had boldly reproved for his scandalous crimes, he preached to the pagans of Gascony and Navarre. Dagobert soon recalled him, threw himself at his feet to beg his pardon, and caused him to baptize his new-born son, Saint Sigebert, afterwards king. The idolatrous people about Ghent were so savage, that no preacher durst venture himself amongst them. This moved the saint to choose that mission; during the course of which he was often beaten, and sometimes thrown into the river: he continued preaching, though for a long time he saw no fruit, and supported himself by his labour. The miracle of his raising a dead man to life, at last opened the eyes of the barbarians, and the country came in crowds to receive baptism, destroying the temples of their idols with their own hands’ (Rev Alban Butler, ‘St. Amandus, Bishop and Confessor’, bartleby.com).

And that is only part of the amazing story of St Amant.

St Helena Parish is named for St Helen, the mother of the Holy Emperor of Rome Constantine the Great, who both performed great deeds on behalf of the Church:

‘The Church calls Saint Constantine (306-337) “the Equal of the Apostles,” and historians call him “the Great.” He was the son of the Caesar Constantius Chlorus (305-306), who governed the lands of Gaul and Britain. His mother was Saint Helen, a Christian of humble birth.

‘The holy emperor St Constantine deeply revered the victory-bearing Sign of the Cross of the Lord, and also wanted to find the actual Cross upon which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. For this purpose he sent his own mother, the holy Empress Helen, to Jerusalem, granting her both power and money. Patriarch Macarius of Jerusalem and Saint Helen began the search, and through the will of God, the Life-Creating Cross was miraculously discovered in 326. (The account of the finding of the Cross of the Lord is found under the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14). The Orthodox Church commemorates the Uncovering of the Precious Cross and the Precious Nails by the Holy Empress Helen on March 6.

‘While in Palestine, the holy empress did much of benefit for the Church. She ordered that all places connected with the earthly life of the Lord and His All-Pure Mother, should be freed of all traces of paganism, and she commanded that churches should be built at these places.

‘The emperor Constantine ordered a magnificent church in honor of Christ’s Resurrection to be built over His tomb. Saint Helen gave the Life-Creating Cross to the Patriarch for safe-keeping, and took part of the Cross with her for the emperor. After distributing generous alms at Jerusalem and feeding the needy (at times she even served them herself), the holy Empress Helen returned to Constantinople, where she died in the year 327.

‘Because of her great services to the Church and her efforts in finding the Life-Creating Cross, the empress Helen is called “the Equal of the Apostles”’ (‘Equal of the Apostles and Emperor Constantine with his Mother Helen’, oca.org).

St Martin of Tours, whom we have mentioned here at The Hayride a few times before, would be at the center of all this.

Though pilgrimage sites would be open to visit year-round, major events could be planned to coincide with the annual feast days for the saint or event for which a place is named – St James the Apostle, 30 April; St Landry (Landericus) of Paris, 10 June; Feast of the Assumption of the Mother of God, 15 August; and so on.

Special attention would be placed on historic sites like the Church of the Ascension of Our Lord in Donaldsonville, for which Ascension Parish is named:  ‘Beautiful cathedral-like structure built in the late 1800’s, serving the Church parish established in 1772 after which Ascension civil parish is named. Originally a mission to serve the growing community of Acadians and evangelize the nearby Native Americans; the largest and one of the most historic cemeteries in the area’ (‘Church of the Ascension of Our Lord’, explorelouisiana.com).

A network of Christian pilgrimage sites and the promotion of it would help Louisiana in significant ways.  Its primary aid, which we have alluded to already, would be to those who are in despair for whatever reason, who feel like there is nothing to really live for anymore, a feeling that abounds today:

‘Life has gotten very chaotic incredibly quickly. It has become increasingly difficult to parse anything from the static. People started coping with this lack of meaning through a kind of ironic detachment (which is very much still around), but it has matured into a pervasive cultural apathy, a permeating numbness. This isn’t nihilism per se. (Even nihilists have a sincere belief system; they just sincerely believe that life is meaningless.) What we’re dealing with is worse than nihilism. People are checking out of life in their 20s and 30s without reaching any profound conclusions about the point of it all.

‘ . . . so many of the things that once gave the average person’s life real meaning are now treated with sarcasm and contempt: college is a waste of money, work is a waste of your life, getting married is just a piece of paper, having kids is a nightmare, family is a burden, hobbies are merely quaint, earnestly expressing yourself is cringe, leaving the house is exhausting, religion is for idiots, the list goes on. If you allow yourself to internalize this perspective, eventually everything becomes a dumb joke.

‘ . . . Death and loneliness abound. Everyone is constantly joking about killing themselves while Canada rolls out a “humane” service to do just that (MAID). People are struggling: most people simply cannot cope without substances like marijuana, alcohol, drugs, and SSRIs. People are lonely: they have fewer friends and live far from their families. Dating seems impossible. Men and women in the prime of their lives are struggling to meet even one potential partner who shares their values and vision for a relationship. Oh, and our phones—Gen Z averages an unfathomable 9 hours of screen time per day—have ruined our attention spans to the point where we can no longer read a book, let alone sit quietly with nothing but our thoughts. If you’re an intelligent, hardworking person, odds are the job you’ll have out of college, and for the next 40-50 years, will involve 10+ hours a day of staring at a laptop screen in a state of heightened stress’ (Catherine Shannon, ‘Everyone is numbing out’, catherineshannon.substack.com; via Rod Dreher, ‘Uncomfortably Numb’, roddreher.substack.com).

There is no earthly remedy for this type of despair.  The cure for it is only in the re-establishment of our union with God, Who is Himself Life and Love.  Holy sites are thin places where we can more easily reconnect with and experience the healing presence of the Grace of God.  The sooner we can connect Louisianans and others in the States around us to God through the saints, churches, etc., on a Christian pilgrimage route, the sooner we will be able to get folks on the path to healing.

In addition to the spiritual benefits, a pilgrimage trail would also be a boon for the Christian arts.  In order to honor the saints and events at the various stops on the route as fully as we ought, there would be a need for new artforms to express that veneration:  new churches or chapels, stained glass windows, icons, choral works, etc.  There could be annual competitions for songs or poems in their honor.  And the State government, instead of wasting tens of millions of dollars on sham NGOs like New Orleans and Company (many cheers to Michael Lunsford for his excellent reporting on Louisiana’s scandalous appropriations; check it out if haven’t already), could give grants instead to artists and craftsmen and architects to help them build up the fabric of a re-Christianizing Louisiana.

Of least importance, though not wholly unimportant, such a trail could help Louisiana economically by attracting pilgrims from places outside of Louisiana, thus aiding Louisiana’s tourism industry.  Lt Gov Nungesser has recently been promoting Louisiana as a welcoming tourist destination in various countries; a Christian pilgrimage route would only add to the attractiveness of Louisiana as a destination for travelers that he and future Lt Governors could point to in their promotions.

Gov Landry, AG Murrill, and the Legislature of Louisiana have been doing good work in the governmental/legal sphere to help strengthen Louisiana’s Christian culture.  But that task requires more than political action.  Broader engagement in society is needed.  Establishing and promoting a Christian pilgrimage trail in Louisiana would help meet that need.  Let us do what we can, then, to redeem the time, while there is daylight left by which we can work, before the night falls, when no one can work (Ephesians 5:16; St John’s Gospel 9:4).