Because we found out last year that the interest in participating in our pilgrimages is greater than the church's capacity, we decided to organize a total of 6 pilgrimages this year, compared to four last year.
- May pilgrimage: May 10
- Small pilgrimage: July 12
- Priestly pilgrimage: July 16
- Large pilgrimage: July 18–19
- Youth pilgrimage: August 15–16
- Rosary pilgrimage: October 4
The main celebrant invited to the priestly pilgrimage is Bishop Vojtěch Cikrle from Brno, and for the large pilgrimage, it is Bishop Josef Hrdlička from Olomouc.
For the large pilgrimage and the youth pilgrimage, we want to revive the local tradition of all-night adoration. The youth pilgrimage should be a bit of an experiment. We want to give it a different – more acceptable to today's young generation – external character.
We will also try to set up an altar in the area in front of the church so that the most attended Holy Masses can take place sub divo, that is, in the open air.
The renewal of pilgrimage traditions, which began in our country with the arrival of freedom, brings many new opportunities but also temptations. Often, due to various pilgrimage tours, we forget the essence of pilgrimage, which has been blurred by the ease and speed of transportation and the unduly overloaded programs of many pilgrimage groups.
Pilgrimages to sacred sites have never been the same as visiting castles and chateaus, exhibitions, or variety shows. The essence of this external reality, which has settled among us mainly thanks to the excellent post-Reformation influence of the Jesuit brothers, and which has become a natural religious expression of every Catholic parish community, is the desire for inner conversion and the expression of our life's destiny.
The time the pilgrim spent on the road was one of the essential parts of the whole event, as was the effort associated with it. All of this directly affected the person who had to, in trust in God's providence, leave their loved ones and their livelihood at home and, exposed to the favor or disfavor of the weather, experienced their fate as a pilgrim in this world. At home, and especially on the way, they prepared for a great reconciliation with God and others, which they realized in the place chosen and endowed by God. Their pilgrimage was an expression of the desire for a change of life, a desire for conversion and for a new experience with God. Physically tired, but all the more spiritually disposed, they then, in the rhythm of songs and prayers, allowed God's word to influence them in the history of salvation. They descended in spirit to the roots of their own spiritual existence and opened themselves to a new divine action. At the pilgrimage site, they surrendered not only their sins but also their worries for themselves and for others, drew comfort and strength, and in the power of the Spirit returned to their everyday destiny. If we add to this that all of this was not an event of the individual, but of the parish community, thus the renewal of the parish, connected with the deepening of social awareness, we understand how completely different it is from a family car trip to a pilgrimage Mass, or a bus tour composed of randomly signed-up participants with a program covering five pilgrimage sites in one day.
Our current situation is certainly different from the situation in our country during the Baroque period. We are different too, and we cannot ignore the accelerated pace of life or the technical innovations that we have grown accustomed to using daily with a certain degree of normalcy. We do not want to renew outdated traditions or nostalgically reminisce about what once was. We want to live with God, we want to pilgrimage in the church, we want to be led by the Holy Spirit, and we must ask for light so that we can give everything a corresponding external expression, so that our life's destiny as pilgrims finds its contemporary expression and our desire for an encounter with God, who transforms, is not hindered by the cheapness of offered experiences. May we rediscover pilgrimage in the Spirit and in truth.
