The Journey: A Guide for the Modern Pilgrim

Michael and María Ruiz Scaperlanda summon travelers to the ancient practice of pilgrimage. Today, as in centuries past, a journey can become a spiritual experience rich with meaning and insight. The Journey shows modern pilgrims how their travels can become rewarding encounters with the sacred. 

This collaborative effort by Catholic journalist and her law-professor husband draws on the couple's extensive travels, including a European pilgrimage they bravely undertook with their four children in the Catholic Church's Jubilee Year 2000. In chapters written alternately by each, the Scaperlandas offer practical advice, personal reflection and stories from journeys taken individually and together.  Whether traveling through life or on a tour bus, they ask readers to consider the difference between being a tourist and a pilgrim.

Drawing deeply on their own experience of consecrated travel, the Scaperlandas guide readers into the heart of the pilgrim experience. Much of their advice answers questions like: What are the most promising pilgrimage destinations? How can families go on pilgrimage? How can vacations and tourism be transformed into a journey of pilgrimage? They also give special attention to practices and attitudes that can make all travel sacred.

Their depth of understanding enables readers to connect the inner and outer journeys—whether on trails halfway around the world or on the well-worn paths of home.

MarÌa Ruiz Scaperlanda is an award-winning Catholic journalist and author with degrees from the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma. Her books include The Seekerís Guide to Mary (Loyola Press, 2002) and Their Faith Has Touched Us: The Legacies of Three Young Oklahoma City Bombing Victims (Sheed & Ward, 1997).Michael Scaperlanda is the Gene and Elaine Edwards Family Chair in Law at the University of Oklahoma. His is co-editor of the three volume book, Immigration and the Constitution (Garland 2001) and is finishing Self-Evident Truths: Catholic Perspectives on American Law. Maria and Michael reside in Norman, Oklahoma, with their children.