Travelling for the faith.

A while ago I read how a well-known writer helped his teenage son overcome a crisis of faith by studying with him Chesterton's Orthodoxy. We all know that by reading the right literature one can both overcome difficulties and strengthen one's faith.

This can also be achieved by travelling, which is the reason for people to go on pilgrimages.

A couple of years ago our teenage son went to the province of Quebec with his school. When he came home he was aglow with a spiritual excitement that was tangible. Being a recent convert to the Catholic faith and living in Ontario, he made his first trip to a "Catholic country." He was both surprised and delighted to find himself spiritually confirmed wherever he looked. The teacher, herself a Protestant, had taken the class to all the holy places, which by non-Catholics are just regarded as part of Quebec culture.

I had been to Quebec before, but I know now that I was not spiritually receptive to the Catholic dimension, because although I could tell that they had many churches, I had not regarded Quebec as a place of pilgrimage. Since our reception into the church in 1989, I have often heard "cradle Catholics" speak about the faith of former years, which always gives me the feeling that it used to be a lot easier to be a Catholic even 25 years ago. Knowing that it is impossible to go back in time, I was yearning to go back in place; I wanted to go to a Catholic country. I was often thinking of some day going to Bavaria, where Catholicism is still strong. But I was not in a hurry.

This year, in late August, some friends came by to bring us a souvenir from St. Anne de Beaupre, a little plaque with the image of St. Anne. The grandmother of our Saviour, she had become very important to me since I myself had become a grandmother three years earlier. But it only became clear to me at this point why people actually travel to the north shore of Quebec to her shrine.

Since we had a week of holidays coming, it seemed like a good idea. Our son agreed to be our tour guide, since he had been to all the worth-while sites before. It did not really occur to us until much later that we were embarking on a pilgrimage! We did not set out on crutches; we were tourists going for French immersion, beginning in Montreal.

Since we were staying in a downtown hotel, we went for a walk in the late evening and quite by accident discovered the Basilique de la Reine du Monde (Our Lady, Queen of the World). Naturally, this is where we went to Mass in the morning. At night we had dinner at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and we sat by a window overlooking the front portal of the Basilica all throughout.

We had no trouble finding the Oratory because it is visible from all over. Is it embarrassing in this age to admit that I made my way from station to station, weeping and praying, pleading for all the causes that have been entrusted to St. Joseph? As a mother, a citizen, a member of the Church, a pro-life activist, a nurse--is there anything he would not be concerned about? It is true what I read in a little volume about Brother Andre since: when you enter the Oratory, you are overwhelmed with the holiness of the shrine and with grief for all our sins and our wickedness!

You also wonder whether Br. Andre's kind of faith and works exists to-day.

During the next five days, we knelt in more churches and attended more Masses than we do in Ontario in a month. But we saw more signs of the Catholic faith all around us than we do in Protestant Ontario, whether they were crucifixes in cemeteries or inscriptions on public buildings, not to mention the names of the saints who grace towns, villages and streets everywhere.

We proceeded from Montreal to Quebec City, with a stop-over at Cap-de-la-Madeleine. It was late in the day and we were quite alone in the great Shrine-church. The Tabernacle is on an altar to the right of the main altar. As I knelt before it I was quite overcome with emotion, remembering the words from a missionary priest: "God is so good! No matter where we went in Africa, in every-out-of-the-way-chapel He was waiting for us in the Tabernacle!"

I kept reflecting on different experiences during other vacations in other places, where it became increasingly more difficult to pray or meditate. Here the very air seemed to inspire thoughts of God, because there was always another church, and Mass just seemed to be about to start.

At St. Anne de Beaupre we were just in time for the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament with Benediction. As he started the Mass, the priest asked for a reader, and before I realized it, I was making my way up to read the lessons and the prayers, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

For some reason we did not enter Notre Dame Cathedral in Quebec City until the day we were to leave. I was quite overwhelmed by its exquisite beauty, because almost everything is decorated in gold, making it appear so rich and majestic, fit for a king and a queen! I felt that I was receiving a very distinct message, which assured me that we are neither orphans nor beggars, but children of a mighty God, members of the Church "joyful and jubilant" and legitimate heirs to the Kingdom.

People talk a lot about the "distinct" Quebec society, without pin-pointing what shaped that culture--Catholicism. It has to be admitted that even in Quebec the Catholic expression has been somewhat diluted, and that we have had some very distinct political enemies of the church emerge from Quebec. Our prayers should be fervent for a solution, especially a spiritual understanding of the importance of Quebec for the church. Rather than give in to secular forces, which try to intimidate Catholics, we must join forces in prayer, storming the heavens, that evangelization will resume flowing from Catholic Quebec to the rest of Canada, to take us safely into the next millennium.

Anneliese Steden, wife, mother, and vigorous supporter of the pro-life movement, lives in Cambridge, Ont., and is a frequent contributor to Catholic Insigh