Not long ago, I found myself relating to Dante. Like him, I reached a point “midway upon the journey of my life, in a forest dark, savage, rough and stern; my straightforward pathway had been lost.”

Anxious for new beginnings in my efforts to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33), I yearned for the chance to make a life-changing pilgrimage to the Catholic holy sites of Europe in one extended trip. Prior to the beginning of 2005, the only faith-based travel I’d done was to Israel. And that was many years ago.

I had long prayed for the opportunity and the means to make such a spiritual expedition, but so far both had eluded me. Then, suddenly, my prayers were answered. 

One of my books on stage magic, my avocation, was about to be translated into Spanish. My publisher felt this was the perfect opportunity to plan a European lecture tour. Once the word got out, no fewer than 30 professional magicians’ clubs from Portugal to Ukraine booked me to speak. 

I had four months to complete my trip during the spring and summer of 2005. I pored over a map of Europe, pinpointing the holy sites I wanted to make sure I saw and correlating it with the list of my contractual obligations. Most of my lectures were on the Iberian peninsula, so I wanted to make sure I walked the Santiago de Compostela in Spain, along with visiting Fatima in Portugal and Lourdes in France.

With the help of a dozen brochures, the Internet, my publisher, three tour promoters and a dozen translators, I mapped out a 26-site pilgrimage that would correspond with my 30-city lecture tour. My contractual obligations being as heavy as they were, I knew I’d end up passing by many sites at which I wouldn’t be able to stop. Still, I’d have plenty of time for plenty of prayer in plenty of holy and historic sites.

My pilgrimage started ahead of my lecture series because, even though the lecture tour was financing the pilgrimage, I wanted to make sure that prayer took precedence over publicity. I decided early on that it would be important to travel by surface transportation in order to maintain the right pace. The last thing I wanted was to be tempted into behaving like a harried tourist, flying high over everything between cities with great haste, barely pausing to pray in any. On a train, I could look out at creation flowing past me just beyond my physical reach, letting my heart seek out its creator in quiet contemplation.

This article is not the place to describe everything I experienced across the pond. That would take a whole book. Suffice it to say that, like the two travelers on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), I learned more looking back on my experience re-meeting Christ than I did undergoing it.

Paths of Prayer

I didn’t go over expecting to “cleanse my soul” in some melodramatic midlife re-evaluation (although the knowledge that the Santiago indulgence offered me time off in purgatory was certainly attractive). I simply wanted this time to concentrate on prayer away from the pressures of modern society. Retreats are wonderful experiences but they last only for a weekend. I wanted a longer sabbatical, one in which I would be able to practice a fuller reliance on God.

I entered each city on my tour, went to my hotel and prepared my lecture. After the conference with the local magicians, I would make plans to travel to the holy sites I had chosen. When I stood at the sites I visited, I felt awe, wonder and contentment. I came to understand the power of silence and the power of prayer, but I can’t honestly report any “Vatican-grade” miracles.

I can, however, report that I experienced a multitude of smaller miracles that I’ll never forget. Chance encounters. Finding priests who could hear confession in English. Moments of solitude when I needed them most.

It was a struggle balancing the sacred and the worldly. In a sense, I had to serve two masters. I needed a source of income to pay for my pilgrimage but, in the midst of that struggle, I came to a deeper love for my Catholic faith.

The lecture tour/pilgrimage took four months to complete. I ended up traveling to 20 countries and lecturing in all 30 of those cities my publisher had mapped out. When my traveling and lecture schedule coincided with local Mass schedules, I joined in the liturgy in a wide variety of languages and rites.

While trudging along the Santiago de Compostela, I met fellow pilgrims with whom I’ve maintained friendships via the Internet since returning home. I fondly remember raising my eyes to the magnificent mosaic of Christ Resurrected in the Basilique du Sacre Coeur in Paris and praying the Divine Mercy Rosary at St. Faustina’s Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Krakow.

The experience of standing in the very footsteps of St. Teresa d’Avila in her monastery in Spain while I read from her autobiography and again at the House of the Dormition and Assumption of Mary in Ephesus, Turkey, are both exquisite and ineffable.

And yet, in retrospect, I believe it is the “smaller” moments I’ll recall the best as the years go by.

Rock of Ages and Places

For example, I was deeply impressed with the simple signs of private piety that I found throughout Europe. Having heard so much about the inexorable advance of secular progressivism on the continent, I was heartened to see so many hand-painted tiles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary affixed to private places of residence. 

I was also happy to observe how the Spanish and Italian faithful decorate the space next to their front doors with tiny chapels complete with candles and fresh flowers. In Poland, all hotel rooms have an icon of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. Lviv, the historic center of Ukrainian Catholicism, had enormous crosses and religious statues in public spaces and in niches in private buildings.

The greatest gift I received from my extended pilgrimage was the connection I felt with the universal Church and with the faithful of all cultures and epochs. I felt rejuvenated with a revived sense of Christ as the center of history and of my life. 

In the end, like Dante, I found my Beatrice. Or, rather, my lover — the one who crowned man “with glory and honor, subjecting all things under his feet” (Hebrews 2:7-8) — found me.

And the best part is: My journey didn’t end when I got back to the daily grind. It’s only just begun — again.

Angelo Stagnaro, a professional stage magician, lives

in New York City.