This project is born from the enthusiasm, devotion and gratitude towards the Lord Jesus and towards the mother Mary, of some people who wanted to put together and share the heritage of traditions, Faith, history, art and culture of our Faenza territory. The special occasion was the extraordinary induction of the year of the Jubilee, commissioned by Pope Francis. The Pope invites us to a journey of conversion of our heart to the merciful embrace of God the Father, in fact the motto of the Jubilee: “merciful with others as the father is with us.” 1, through the mediation of Jesus Christ, the example of the ecclesial figure of Mary Mother and of all the saints who preceded us. Mercy as the full disposition of the heart and of the whole person to the fundamental call that dwells in the depths of our heart, in the depths of our soul, in the conscience of every person. Mercy like that sincere look towards the brother you meet on the journey of life. Moreover, Mercy is the way that unites God to man, because it opens our hearts to the hope of being loved forever, despite the limit of our sin. This journey of conversion, reconciliation between us and God, between ourselves, with our brothers and with all creation, has as its sign the pilgrimage: “Pilgrimage is a peculiar sign in the Holy Year, because it is an icon of the journey that each person performs in its existence. Life is a pilgrimage and the human being is a “viator”, a pilgrim who walks the street to the desired destination. Also to reach the Holy Door in Rome and everywhere else, everyone will have to make a pilgrimage according to their own strength. It will be a sign of the fact that mercy is also a goal to be reached and it requires commitment and sacrifice. The pilgrimage, therefore, is an incentive to conversion: crossing the Holy Door we will let ourselves be embraced by God’s mercy and we will commit ourselves to be merciful with others as the Father is with us. “2 The journey is to discover the tenderness of God , also through the sweet gaze of art and of the history of faith in our territory; through the testimony of the saints and blessed who lived, preached visited this earth; through that sanctuary of love that is Mary Mother in devotion and tradition in Faenza. The pilgrimage in question consists of 8 stages of the person and of the territory, which summarize the themes of the seven corporal and spiritual works of mercy3, the eighth is a stage of joy and reconciliation. The journey of the “VIAE MISERICORDIAE AD IESUM PER MARIAM” does not want to be just a pilgrimage of spiritual health of the soul, as Don Bosco would have said, but of an integral human formation that promotes the educational growth and values of the person, a growth in knowledge historical, literary and artistic of the territory of Faenza, a proposal for the development and promotion of the territory, of a social, cultural, religious and welcoming growth of the person and of the territory.4
1 POPE FRANCIS, “Misericordiae Vultus” n.14, INDICATION BUBBLE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY, Vatican Ed. Rome 2015
2 PPOPE FRANCIS, “Misericordiae Vultus” n.14, INDICATION BUBBLE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY, Vatican Ed. Rome 2015
3 THE SEVEN WORKS OF SPIRITUAL MERCY
4 PRAID PIETRO; “Preventing not repressing. The educational system of Don Bosco “. Ed. Las Roma 1999