By Cathy Blankenau Bender
Editor-in-Chief
A group of seminarians will begin a pilgrimage May 19, walking 375 miles across the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln in less than a month.
Six seminarians studying for the diocese – five who attend St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, and one from Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Md. – will make the pilgrimage with Father James Morin, a formator and instructor at the seminary. Father Morin is also vice chancellor for the diocese and in April, he was appointed rector of St. Gregory. He will officially begin that role mid-pilgrimage, on June 1.
The group will begin at St. Benedict Parish in Nebraska City, the oldest parish in the diocese, and walk, averaging nearly 15 miles per day, visiting diocesan parishes in 25 communities before concluding June 16 with a final 18.6-mile stretch from St. Joseph Parish in Stratton to St. Joseph Parish in Benkelman, the westernmost parish of the diocese.
Father Morin said the pilgrimage was the idea of seminarian Colter Fulton, a native of St. Mary Parish in Nebraska City who just finished his first theology year at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md.
“Colter shared his idea with me, and I told him that I’d help make it happen,” Father Morin said. “We discussed our ideas about why we would do this and what we hoped from it.”
Fulton explained his hopes: “I hope that the pilgrimage will accomplish almost nothing, in the sense that I don’t want to subvert it as a mere means to an end,” he said.
“A pilgrimage is one of those things which is, in a way, for its own sake—a space for contemplative prayer, an attentive beholding of a beloved place, a pondering of wonderful things in the heart, (an experience of) suffering in community, an initiation into the real. Those are all things that I long for and are hard to come by these days. In a strange way, walking for a really long time in a place that I love seems like the right thing to do.”
Father Morin said two of their main inspirations behind the idea were Martin Shaw and Jonathan Pageau.
“The former is a traditional storyteller and the latter has a podcast called the Symbolic World, which I’d highly recommend,” he said.
The pilgrimage is more than a summer trip and part of the men’s ongoing formation. Seminarians have a variety of summer assignments which are determined by the director of seminarians – currently Father Brian Kane. He takes into consideration each seminarian’s stage in formation, what he has done in the past, and what he wants to do. Some teach for the Totus Tuus summer catechetical program, some work at Camp Kateri Tekakwitha, or the seminary or the chancery. In later stages of formation, they are assigned to work in a parish. A few seminarians get jobs on their own.
“These assignments aren’t random,” Father Morin said, “but are meant to complement the formative work done during the school year. There are many things which can’t be taught in the seminary setting, and the summer is a great chance for guys to grow in different ways.”
The men participating in the pilgrimage across Nebraska all expressed interest in the trip. They will all have assignments after it concludes.
Father Morin, Colter and Nicholas Hanus, one of the seminarians from St. Gregory the Great and a native of St. Joseph Parish in Lincoln, planned the route. Hanus and Dylan Beck, also from St. Gregory the Great and St. Joseph Parish, “were in charge of making sure we had the right equipment,” Father Morin said.
The men will carry equipment – Father Morin said a generous dermatologist provided enough sunscreen and sun shirts for the entire trip, for example – but the pilgrimage is designed with an element of adventure. They will stay at rectories or parish halls along the way.
Father Morin expressed gratitude to the pastors along the way for helping them out.
“Some parishes are throwing a potluck for us,” Father Morin said, “other pastors are planning on hosting us at the rectory for dinner and giving us a tour around town. We didn’t want this to be an extra burden for pastors, but we were open to any way in which they wanted to share the experience of their parish life.”
While the trip is an impressive undertaking, the seminarians are looking forward to the challenge.
Alec Langan, who attends St. Gregory the Great, is looking forward to walking to his home parish, St. Patrick in McCook.
“It simply brings so much joy to heart to be able to walk through McCook, because this is the place where my Catholic faith was nurtured and my vocation was discovered,” he said.
“I am most excited to feel like the priests of old who would travel to McCook by horseback in order to celebrate Mass and minister to the people of God’s country,” he said.
Beck and his family moved to Lincoln in 2018 from Missoula, Montana, where the landscape is quite different from Nebraska.
“Although the plains were unfamiliar to us and hard to get used to,” he said, “we almost immediately fell in love with the culture of Nebraska. The strong Catholic faith and slow, family-focused lifestyle is what we immediately recognized and have learned to love.
“This reality eventually sparked my discernment of serving the Diocese of Lincoln as a priest and entering seminary,” he continued. “I am most excited to witness the culture in its entirety this summer, and to continue learning the strong roots of the Nebraska people.”
Father Douglas Daro, pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Nebraska City, will be the first to host the pilgrims. After the 5:30 p.m. Mass Monday, May 18, the parish will host a potluck in their honor.
“We are blessed to welcome the seminary pilgrims,” he said, “and to put into practice the words of St. Benedict, ‘Let all guests be welcomed as Christ.’”
Editor’s Note: Read more about the pilgrimage from Father James Morin and Colter Fulton.
