A St. Paul School student listens as Eddie McFarland shows the monstrance while leading an Oct. 16 tour of St. Stephen Cathedral. RILEY GREIF | WKC

BY ANDY TELLI, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC

As the Catholic Church began to prepare for the Jubilee of Hope in 2025, Pope Francis chose as its motto “Pilgrims of Hope.”

Members of the faithful from throughout the Diocese of Owensboro have taken the motto to heart, organizing pilgrimages to the six Jubilee sites designated by Bishop William F. Medley: St. Stephen Cathedral in Owensboro, St. Romuald Parish in Hardinsburg, the Diocesan Marian Shrine at St. Joseph Parish in Bowling Green, St. Leo Parish in Murray, St. Francis de Sales Parish in Paducah, and Holy Redeemer Parish in Beaver Dam.

“For me it comes back to the journey. We’re all on the journey. We’re all pilgrims here,” said Robin Murphey of Owensboro, who organized a one-day pilgrimage to three of the sites in the diocese and a separate Jubilee pilgrimage to Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana.

A group of parishioners from Holy Spirit in Bowling Green make a pilgrimage to Holy Redeemer Parish in Beaver Dam, one of the Diocese of Owensboro’s Jubilee of Hope 2025 pilgrimage sites. COURTESY OF RAEANNE ALLANDE

“Our life is a pilgrimage. It’s a journey of journeys,” Murphey said. “We’re not citizens of this world, we’re citizens of heaven. We’re pilgrims in this world.”

Murphey originally had hoped to lead a two-day pilgrimage to all six sites in the diocese, but in the end journeyed to three of the sites on Saturday, Aug. 30: St. Francis de Sales Parish in Paducah, St. Leo Parish in Murray, and the Marian Shrine at St. Joseph Parish in Bowling Green.

She led a second Jubilee pilgrimage to Saint Meinrad Archabbey on Sunday, Oct. 5.

“They were very hospitable, welcoming,” Murphey said.

“The purpose was to encounter Christ in the churches, the communities, and the people who were pilgriming with us,” said Murphey, who was accompanied on the pilgrimage to the diocesan sites by 18 people from eight parishes throughout western Kentucky. “People really enjoyed the community and getting to know people across the diocese.”

Before the pilgrimage to the three diocesan sites, Murphey developed a novena that pilgrims could make beforehand to prepare by reflecting on the pilgrimage and the Jubilee of Hope. For each day of the novena, Murphey included a reflection about a different aspect of the Jubilee and the Jubilee Prayer.

On Nov. 18, Brenda Spees and Laura Gregory Shaw, two pilgrims from St. Francis de Sales in Paducah, smile with their tote bags while picking them up from the McRaith Catholic Center in Owensboro after receiving all six pilgrimage stamps. RACHEL HALL | WKC

‘Enriched with prayer’

Raeanne Allande, the pastoral associate at Holy Spirit Parish in Bowling Green, was looking for ways the parish could participate in the Jubilee of Hope. She has made pilgrimages to Rome and the Holy Land and wanted to give Holy Spirit parishioners a way to have a similar experience.

She organized three pilgrimages to all six of the diocesan sites, visiting St. Francis de Sales and St. Leo on one Tuesday, the Marian Shrine and Holy Redeemer Parish on a second, and St. Stephen Cathedral and St. Romauld on a third.

“Each of our three Jubilee pilgrimages contained an opportunity for a deeper spiritual renewal,” Allande said. “They involved prayer, liturgy, profession of faith, plenary indulgences, and charity.”

A total of 30 Holy Spirit parishioners participated in the pilgrimages, and 10 completed the pilgrimage to all six sites, Allande said.

“Each trip was so enriched with prayer, and then we would always have some sort of fun on the side,” she said.

“What was really lovely, most of them had not been to many of these churches,” Allande said of the Holy Spirit pilgrims. “All these parishes were enriched with history.”

The pilgrimages during the Jubilee has sparked an interest in making more pilgrimages, Allande said. At Holy Spirit there have been discussions about making pilgrimages next year to the Archdiocese of Louisville’s sites.

Parishioners from Holy Spirit in Bowling Green make a pilgrimage to St. Romuald Parish in Hardinsburg, one of the Diocese of Owensboro’s Jubilee of Hope 2025 pilgrimage sites. COURTESY OF RAEANNE ALLANDE

Passport to the Jubilee

“We had quite a few different groups that came,” said Zach Ault, pastoral minister at St. Francis de Sales. “We had a bunch of individuals who came.”

For the Jubilee pilgrimage sites, the diocesan communications office, in collaboration with the diocesan Office of Worship, developed a passport booklet with all the information that pilgrims would need to participate in Jubilee 2025. The passports included information about each of the pilgrimage sites and what makes them special, as well as information about how to earn a plenary indulgence during a person’s visit to a pilgrimage site.

Also included were ways to find information about how to connect more deeply to the spiritual life during the jubilee, including Eucharistic adoration, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the Jubilee year itself. Those who collected stamps from all six sites could receive a commemorative tote bag.

When pilgrims to St. Francis de Sales, which was established in 1848, would ask to have their passports stamped, Ault said, “that gave us a chance to greet them and answer any questions about the parish and its history.”

The pilgrimage passports “really encouraged people to go to these pilgrimage sites,” Ault said. “It was a nice way of tracking their pilgrimage during this Jubilee year.”

St. Leo was one of several pilgrimage sites that ran out of passports and requested more.

“I noticed quite a few of them were gone and most of the Spanish passports were gone,” said Joy Navan, interim director of evangelization at St. Leo.

Among the pilgrims to St. Leo were individuals, couples, families, and groups, Navan said. The pilgrims, who would attend Mass during their pilgrimage to St. Leo, contributed to a 15 percent increase in Mass attendance at the parish over the last year, she said. “We consider that pretty significant.”

Students from St. Paul School in Leitchfield watch an Oct. 16 presentation about St. Stephen Cathedral in the undercroft while visiting on pilgrimage. RILEY GREIF | WKC

‘People are searching’

“All of the sites were well visited,” Dcn. Ken Bennett, co-coordinator of the diocesan worship office, said as the Jubilee nears its official conclusion on Jan. 6, 2026, the traditional date for the Feast of the Epiphany.

“I just feel like people are searching for something,” Dcn. Bennett said. “We have the answer, and that is in Christ himself.”

The Jubilee of Hope overlapped the Eucharistic Revival in the United States, and there was an obvious connection between the two, Dcn. Bennett said: “Our hope is in Christ, the Eucharist.”

In preparing for the Jubilee of Hope, Pope Francis wrote: “We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us, and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and far-sighted vision. The… Jubilee can contribute greatly to restoring a climate of hope and trust as a prelude to the renewal and rebirth that we so urgently desire.”

St. Romuald Interparochial School students visit St. Stephen Cathedral on Sept. 24 during a jubilee pilgrimage trip. RILEY GREIF | WKC

Originally printed in the December 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.