A National Pilgrimage Devoted to Christ and Our Lady
This year, we’re doing something new.
The 2026 Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage Design Contest is now open, and we’re inviting pilgrims to submit original artwork for a chance to be featured on Pilgrimage merchandise.
Whether you sketch, paint, or design digitally, this is your chance to create the next Pilgrimage shirt. The winning design will be featured throughout the year, and the winner will receive $100 in store credit.
Submissions are open through May 15.
Holy Week calls us to step closer to Christ, to watch, pray, and walk with him from the Garden to the Cross, through the stillness of Holy Saturday, and into the joy of Easter morning. These sacred days invite us not only to remember, but to enter more deeply into the mystery of his love.
This guide gathers reflections from Dominican friars to accompany your prayer from Spy Wednesday through Easter. Each reflection can accompany your prayer of the Sorrowful Mysteries, inviting stillness, reflection, and a closer walk with Christ through his Passion.
Enter the tension of Holy Week, a feast born from sorrow. This reflection invites you to stand with Christ in his final days before the Passion, to watch with attentive hearts, and to ponder his obedience and love for us. Let these words guide your prayer as the journey begins.
Step into the quiet of Gethsemane and stand with Christ in prayer. This reflection draws you into his surrender to the Father’s will, his watchfulness, and the love that carries him to the Cross. Pray these words alongside the Sorrowful Mysteries to enter more deeply into his agony, his prayer, and his faithful love.
Come to the foot of the Cross and behold Christ’s love poured out for us all. This reflection invites you to enter his suffering, to contemplate mercy and sacrifice, and to let his Cross shape your heart. Meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries as you pray, allowing his Passion to transform your soul and deepen your devotion.
On Holy Saturday, the world holds its breath. This ancient homily invites you to wait with Christ and the disciples in prayerful stillness, to trust in God’s plan, and to reflect on the mystery of love hidden in silence. Let this meditation prepare your heart for Easter joy, praying the Sorrowful Mysteries as a companion to the quiet of this holy day.
Celebrate the victory of Christ over death and the hope of new life. This reflection invites your heart to rejoice in his Resurrection, to carry his love into your days, and to allow the joy of Easter to renew your prayer and your life. Conclude your Holy Week devotion by praying the Rosary, reflecting on how the Sorrowful Mysteries lead into the joy of the Glorious Mysteries.
As this Holy Week journey comes to a close, may you remain close to Christ in prayer, carrying what you have reflected on into the silence of your heart. The Passion leads always to hope, and the Cross opens into the joy of the Resurrection.
On Holy Saturday, the Church contemplates a silence that is not emptiness, but mystery.
This ancient homily, read by Fr. Michael Donahue, O.P., reflects on what Christ is doing in the hidden space between the Cross and the Resurrection. Far from being inactive in the tomb, Christ is portrayed as descending into death itself to seek out and rescue those who have gone before him.
The homily presents Holy Saturday as a moment of hidden victory: Christ breaks the power of death from within, calls Adam and all humanity to rise, and begins the work of restoration even before Easter dawns.
It is a meditation on the “harrowing of hell,” revealing that what appears to be silence is already the unfolding of salvation.
From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday
The Lord descends into hell
Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.
See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.
I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.
This reflection is part of our Holy Week guide, designed to help you walk with Christ in prayer through these sacred days. View the full guide here.
Wood is an unforgiving substance. Think about the last time you stubbed your toe on that wooden door or chair or received a splinter from grabbing a loose board. But the hardness and stiffness of wood also makes it stable and permanent. A good piece of wood can be made into many things—including a cross.
The Church mourns the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Christ’s humanity is put to death by the nailing of his human flesh to the bitter wood. It inflicts pain without remorse. It is the means by which Christ breathes his last breath.
Yet Trinitarian love transcends the pain and stiffness of the cross. It pours forth onto the world in the form of blood and water from Christ’s body: “But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (Jn 19:33–34). From the rigid and painful wood flows Christ’s perfect act of charity—blood and water are the fruit which forever change man’s fate. Now, death is not the end. While we mourn on Good Friday, we know that Christ’s death is the means to victory over sin and punishment.
The cross leads to conversion and freedom from temptation and sin. The German Dominican John Tauler articulates this well in his Spiritual Conferences when he says,
Men who are beginners in the spiritual life, when they first turn away from the world, are hunted by temptations, just as the hart is hunted by hounds; in particular, they are hunted by their great and foul sins…The harder and more fiercely we are hunted, the more intense our thirst for God, and the more ardent our longing. It will happen sometimes that one of the hounds will overtake the hart and seize him by the belly with its teeth. The hart, unable to shake itself free of the hound, will drag it to a tree, dash it against the trunk, break its neck and so be free of it. This is what we ought to do… We should run with all haste to the tree of the Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so break the neck of our hound, our temptation.
Tauler shows us that true conversion happens by clinging to the wood of the cross. The Crucifixion reminds us both of the frailty of human nature and man’s choice to take the life of his Savior. We see the capacity for human destruction in every image of the Crucifixion. We’re reminded of the brutal effects that sin has on human nature. We cry, “Not me Lord! I could never do that.” But the cross is a mirror into the soul of man—we won’t like what we see, but that doesn’t change who we are. The running from sin stops on the wood of the cross. Here, sin and mercy meet, and Christ’s love is outpoured for us. Real conversion begins in accepting this reality, and it’s at the cross that we rest with our Lord.
The wood of the Cross leads us to conversion and freedom when we cling to it with our whole self. The more we nail ourselves to it, the more we are animated by the blood and water which pour fourth from the side of Christ. This is the way of the Christian life. The road to love is paved by the wood of the cross. Nail me to the wood, my Lord. Give me the grace to persevere in this life so that I may see you in the next.
This article was originally published in dominicanajournal.org and was written by Fr. Cornelius Avaritt, O.P.
This reflection is part of our Holy Week guide, designed to help you walk with Christ in prayer through these sacred days. View the full guide here.
The antagonists in the story of salvation history rarely receive recognition in the Christian calendar. No holy day is named for Cain or Jezebel, Herod or Diocletian, Topcliffe or Calles. Judas, however, is the exception. Today is popularly known as Spy Wednesday, named for the renegade disciple who, as today’s Gospel explains, was spying on Jesus, looking for “an opportunity to betray him.” Spy Wednesday, consequently, constitutes something like an anti-feast, a day to remember not a virgin, martyr, or confessor, but a traitor.
But why draw attention to Judas? Is it simply to explain how the arrest and trial of Jesus came about, or is there more we can learn from reflecting on the person of Judas and his disastrous fall?
Judas was truly a disciple of Jesus. Indeed, he was his trusted friend (cf. Ps 41:10; Matt 26:50). He was also an apostle, one of the twelve chosen by the Lord himself “to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons” (Mark 3:14-15).
As such, Judas witnessed Christ’s life and ministry from a privileged vantage point, not as a mere spectator but as an active participant. With his own ears, Judas heard the grunts and squeals of the pigs into whom Christ sent the possessed man’s demons (Luke 8:26-39). With his own hands, he touched the miraculously multiplied bread and fish (Matt 15:32-39). With his own eyes, he looked through the stormy mist to see Jesus and Peter walking on water (Matt 14:22-33).
And yet, after all this, with his own lips, Judas kissed the God-man’s cheek to single him out for his unmerited arrest (Matt 26:47–50).
Judas’s story is tragic, to be sure, but our provident God wastes nothing, not even sins. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains:
Even when God punishes men by permitting them to fall into sin, this is directed to the good of virtue. Sometimes indeed it is for the good of those who are punished, that is to say, when men arise from sin more humble and more cautious. But it is always for the amendment of others, who seeing some men fall from sin to sin, are the more fearful of sinning. (ST I-II, q. 87, a. 2)
Judas could have repented of his sin and arisen more humble and more cautious, but he did not. We, however, seeing how he cascaded from sin to sin, from theft and greed to treachery and despair, can learn from his fall. Judas shows us that it really is possible to be an intimate companion of Christ and to turn away from him, to receive grace, and then reject the gift.
Yet the warning of Spy Wednesday is by no means the last word. Our anti-feast comes just before the Sacred Triduum, the holiest days of the year, when we direct our focus once again to those very mysteries by which we have hope. As Spy Wednesday reminds us that it is possible for us to fall, the Triduum reminds us of the more astonishing truth that it really is possible for us, poor sinners though we are, to be forgiven of all our sins—even the worst transgressions—and to share abundant life with God forever.
May our reflecting on Judas today help us to be ever vigilant in the struggle against sin and ever dependent on Christ and the victory he won for us. By God’s grace, may we persevere to the end and one day be welcomed into heaven by the saints—those with proper feasts.
This article was originally published in dominicanajournal.org and was written by Br. Samuel Trecost, O.P.
This reflection is part of our Holy Week guide, designed to help you walk with Christ in prayer through these sacred days. View the full guide here.
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