Image and Pilgrimage #1

Ashley Barham
12/1/15

I grew up in the church, so I have heard some about pilgrimages like the one that Mary and Joseph made to Bethlehem. I have also learned about pilgrimages in different religions through a Religions of the East course here at CNU. The most common one I have heard of is the one to Mecca that Muslims are encouraged to make, as it is one of the five pillars of their faith. As I was reading Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, I noticed that the author divides pilgrimages into four different kinds. This was strange to me because I had never thought about any of them being different or of a way to categorize them. They were all the same to me. However, after reading further, I understood the four different types and how they differed. I learned that the kind of Pilgrimage I had been associating all Pilgrimages with is the prototypical type. This is a type that a person creates on their own, such as the popular ones today to Jerusalem.