Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith

4/5 ( ratings)

Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and makes his way overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium.

Making his way through a landscape laced with some of the most important shrines to the faith, Egan finds a modern Canterbury Tale in the chapel where Queen Bertha introduced Christianity to pagan Britain; parses the supernatural in a French town built on miracles; and journeys to the oldest abbey in the Western world, founded in 515 and home to continuous prayer over the 1,500 years that have followed. He is accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther.

A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.

One of Oprah's Must-Read Books of Fall 2019

Language: English

Pages: 367

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Viking

Release: October 15, 2019

ISBN: 0735225230

ISBN 13: 9780735225237

A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith

4/5 ( ratings)

Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and makes his way overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium.

Making his way through a landscape laced with some of the most important shrines to the faith, Egan finds a modern Canterbury Tale in the chapel where Queen Bertha introduced Christianity to pagan Britain; parses the supernatural in a French town built on miracles; and journeys to the oldest abbey in the Western world, founded in 515 and home to continuous prayer over the 1,500 years that have followed. He is accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther.

A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.

One of Oprah's Must-Read Books of Fall 2019

Language: English

Pages: 367

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Viking

Release: October 15, 2019

ISBN: 0735225230

ISBN 13: 9780735225237

More books from Timothy Egan

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis

3.9/5 ( ratings)

The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero

4.2/5 ( ratings)

The Good Rain: Across Time & Terrain in the Pacific Northwest

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Breaking Blue

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Winemaker's Daughter

3.1/5 ( ratings)

Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice

The Long Darkness

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Home Field: Writers Remember Baseball

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Portrait of Seattle

3.4/5 ( ratings)

The Photographs of Ben Shahn: The Library of Congress (Fields of Vision)

4.1/5 ( ratings)

A Path to the World: Becoming You

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Young Men and Fire

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Curve of Time

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Curve of Time: 50th Anniversary Edition

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?