Engaging the Whole Parish
An interview with Fr. Jonathan Wilson by Jayd Henricks
Fr. Jonathan Wilson, a priest of the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, is the pastor of Saint Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westerville, Ohio. Here he shares the experience of pilgrimaging to Italy with his parishioners and involving those who didn’t attend through daily updates. Fr. Wilson was interviewed by Jayd Henricks via email.
WWNN: You recently led a parish pilgrimage to Rome and other locations in Italy. You framed the trip within the context of the 7 P's. What are they?
Fr. Wilson: I was blessed to lead a parish pilgrimage to Italy in October of 2024. As we prepared for the pilgrimage, I shared with them the 7 P’s of Pilgrimage. They are place, purpose, prayer, people, patience, penance, and “phun” (pilgrimage fun). The fruit of the 7 P’s of Pilgrimage is peace!
Place: Every pilgrimage involves a place, a destination. For our pilgrimage to Italy, it involved many “places” as we visited churches, shrines, and tombs of saints throughout Italy.
Purpose: A pilgrimage is a journey with a purpose. For the pilgrims, this is very personal as everyone journeys with their own special intentions. In knowing that we journey for personal reasons, there is a community that quickly develops among the pilgrims.
We are all on the journey together, for a purpose or purposes.
Prayer: A pilgrimage would not be a pilgrimage without prayer. On our pilgrimage, we were blessed with daily Mass in some amazing locations as well as a daily recitation of the Holy Rosary. In addition, we had many opportunities to pray before the Blessed Sacrament and before the tombs of saints. Praying together transforms the group into a community of believers, a pilgrim Church.
People: A pilgrimage is not complete without people. The pilgrimage is a communal experience. Each of the pilgrims has their own unique story and personality. Each pilgrim is at a different place in the journey of life and faith. With that, there is a beautiful community that quickly develops. One of my favorite parts of a pilgrimage is when people who would otherwise never have met come together as brothers and sisters in Christ on the shared pilgrimage of life.
Patience: People and travel demand patience. The origin of patience is the Latin word patior, to suffer or endure. And so, the pilgrims need to embrace patience as a necessary virtue of travelling and being with a diverse group of people with different personalities, political opinions, preferences, etc. The spirit of patience truly transforms the group and preserves the joy that permeates a pilgrimage.
Penance: Along with patience, the pilgrims need to have a spirit of penance. As we encounter difficulties, and there are always difficulties on a pilgrimage, we need to have a spirit of penance. By offering things up we don’t allow the challenges to create a spirit of negativity. I tell the pilgrims that one of the rules is that we can’t complain. Tourists complain and criticize, pilgrims are patient and offer up the difficulties. This one small fact transforms everything. After one pilgrimage, one of the pilgrims shared with me, “Father, it was so hard not to complain on this trip. However, it was the greatest trip I have ever made. Every other trip I have been on people have complained and it brought everybody down.”
Phun: The final “P” of the seven P’s is “phun”—what I call “pilgrimage fun.” The truth is, a pilgrimage is really fun. Yes, it is exhausting. But the spirit of joy that permeates the group creates great moments of laughter and community. It is truly fun!
WWNN: Why even go on a pilgrimage?
Fr. Wilson: I have come to discover that a pilgrimage is the best way to travel. And, when we enter into a pilgrimage, it truly becomes a metaphor for life and a school for life. For Christians, our entire life on earth is a pilgrimage to the Father’s house. We pray in the Third Eucharistic Prayer: “Strengthen in faith and love your pilgrim Church on earth.” We are a pilgrim Church journeying to heaven. As we enter into a pilgrimage, and the 7 P’s of pilgrimage, we enter into a school of life. For many people, travel is a fleeting experience of escape from the ordinary humdrum of life (as they experience it). For the pilgrim, travel is a metaphor for life that continues to be lived after the pilgrimage is over. If we can begin to discover, and experience, our lives as a pilgrim journey to the Father’s house, then we grow in the realization of the necessity of daily prayer, openness to the people around us, patience, penance, and life itself becomes more “phun”!
WWNN: What was especially interesting about your pilgrimage is that you had a virtual dimension to it that allowed everyone in your parish to participate. What did that consist of and how many people participated who were not able to travel with you?
Fr. Wilson: I am blessed to pastor a large parish of 4,500 households. As we were preparing for the pilgrimage, I wanted to share the pilgrimage with the entire parish and not simply the 30 pilgrims on the trip. And so, we came up with a plan for a daily 1 minute and 30 second or less video that could be edited to become a Facebook reel. With a portable tripod and a wireless microphone, and the co-leaders of our pilgrimage serving as the camera crew and producers, I filmed a daily video. We sent the video to our parish communications director along with photographs from the day and he edited the videos and posted them. What I did not expect was how much attention the videos got. Very quickly we were averaging 3,000 views per day. And so, it truly felt like we were including the whole parish (and many others who joined us). I invited all who watched the videos to join us as “virtual pilgrims.” Filming the daily video became a highlight of each day.
WWNN: By making the pilgrimage open to all, was there a sense that the entire parish was on the pilgrimage with you and your group? Did this experience help unite the parish in any unexpected ways?
Fr. Wilson: The virtual pilgrimage was a great experience of reaching the parish and inviting them to share in the pilgrimage. We visited many special locations that are important parts of our faith, and so it became a great teaching opportunity as well. This felt especially significant given that the Catholic Faith is still very young in the United States. As Catholics living in America, it can sometimes be difficult to understand the richness of our faith. The daily videos with pictures allowed an opportunity for the parish and all who joined us on the virtual pilgrimage to grow in their sense of the gift of being Catholic. When I returned back to the parish, it was a great joy to hear so many parishioners remark how they enjoyed the videos and how much they meant to them. 3,000 or so people joined us on the virtual pilgrimage and that was a great joy.
WWNN: What do you see as the fruit of this sort of pilgrimage for the parish?
Fr. Wilson: As I mentioned above, the virtual pilgrimage introduced the parish to the notion of a pilgrimage and helped them to grow in their appreciation for the gift of our Catholic faith. Through a little bit of effort, I was able to connect the parish to our pilgrimage. For the pilgrims who came on the pilgrimage, we had a great experience of growing in community. While a small group of the parish, having a diverse group of parishioners grow together in the faith truly impacts the larger parish as well. These pilgrims are a new center of community in the parish and with their pilgrim spirit of openness to others they are also a source of welcoming others into the community.
WWNN: How difficult is this to do and do you recommend it for other parishes?
Fr. Wilson: I would heartily recommend to every pastor to do an annual parish pilgrimage. A pilgrimage does not have to be international or even overnight. And, yes, I encourage the “virtual pilgrimage” as a way of including and inviting the rest of the parish to experience the pilgrimage and to grow in the “spirituality of pilgrimage.” In so doing we discover the gift and adventure of living pilgrim lives.
WWNN: Anything else you would like to say about the experience?
Fr. Wilson: The parish’s interest in the videos was a powerful reminder that we as pastors can truly impact our parishes through these new technologies. I am concerned that we too often “outsource” our evangelization to more high-tech video resources. As pastors, we have earned the trust of our people and they are open and desire to learn from us. I believe our people would much prefer our “non-professional” videos to well-produced videos from people they don’t know. So, I am hopeful that the future of evangelization in the United States will include more pastors reaching out to their local parish flocks through technology to share the richness of our faith.
Jayd Henricks is the president of Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal. He served at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for eleven years and holds a STL in systematic theology from the Dominican House of Studies. He has written extensively on the Church in America.