Pilgrimage: Sacred movement of religious revelation and educational transformation
Abstract
This is a humanistic arts based research study that examines pilgrimage as religiously revelatory and educationally transformative. The central thesis of the project asks: How can pilgrimage, as a religious practice be religiously revelatory and educatively transformative? This study investigates how pilgrimage as a religious practice can deepen one’s journey into a more profound understanding of the complexity of human life and the mystery of the Divine. Using the root metaphor of symphonic movement, the reader is guided through the pilgrimage journey. Central to the research is an understanding of pilgrimage as a relational and experience embedded in Gabriel Moran’s meaning of revelation as “the relation between divine activity and the human response.” This experience of revelation encourages an attention and thoughtfulness for the pilgrimage journey that breaks open the potential for a deepened awareness of the presence of the Holy as a person walks with mindfulness to the connection of the physical, intellectual and spiritual as well as in relationship to the created world, other humans and God. As a contemplative experience that engages both the inner and outer life of the pilgrim, the practice of pilgrimage offers rich potential for development and growth within the individual pilgrim as she situates herself in the world and moves towards wholeness. The study offers that in addition to being a spiritually fulfilling journey, pilgrimage can be a religiously educative and transformative experience with rich pedagogical and curricular implications.
Subject Area
Religion|Religious education
Recommended Citation
Egler, Alexandria Maria Hirniak, "Pilgrimage: Sacred movement of religious revelation and educational transformation" (2016). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI10113661.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI10113661
