Pilgrims will have a chance to experience some landmark sites in Australian Catholic and Jesuit history on a new trail being pioneered this year.

In 2020 the Jesuits’ Being with God in Nature ministry will offer for the first time the Australian Ignatian Trail pilgrimage.

*Pilgrims at Sevenhill Centre of Ignatian Spirituality. PHOTO: jesuit.org.au*

“Pilgrimage has been a significant part of the Christian tradition as people followed in the footsteps of saints seeking that deeper connection with God,” the Australian Jesuits say on their website.

“Pilgrimage is a wonderful way of slowing down and being centred again in Creation and in the God of all Creation.”

Two Australian Ignatian Trail pilgrimages will be offered in 2020: one a 4-day walk, the other a 7-day walk.

The Australian Ignatian Trail begins just north of Adelaide in South Australia and follows in the footsteps of the first Jesuits, who after landing in Port Adelaide in 1848, set out to the Clare Valley and founded Sevenhill in 1851. It also follows some of the trail of St Mary MacKillop as she set about establishing Catholic schools in rural South Australia in the 1860s.

The walks will pick up part of the Heysen Trail and finish walking along the Riesling Trail into the Sevenhill Centre of Ignatian Spirituality in the Clare Valley.

The first Australian Ignation Trail pilgrimage will be in May this year and the second one in August-September.

For more information on the pilgrimages click here.