"IT IS HERE that we come together in faith and ask Our Lady for those spiritual blessings to build our mission" wrote St. Charles Garnier, SJ, (1606 - 1649) to his superiors in France as a small band of Jesuits established their mission among the Hurons at Ste. Marie. These same words took on a contemporary ring for some 700 young men and women who gathered at pilgrims in Midland, Ontario, at the Canadian Martyrs' Shrine. They spent the week from July 16 to 22 on what they came to know as holy ground, praying for similar blessings and graces in their lives before they moved on to Toronto for World Youth Day.

Seven hundred young people took part in ANIA 2002, a week-long series of pilgrimages to Jesuit sites in Ontario, Canada, that preceeded World Youth Day this past summer. Daily hikes to sacred sites enhanced the prayer, liturgies, and internal spiritual journeys the pilgrims experienced.

"ANIA" is not an acronym. Legend is that French missionaries and traders used the word with Hurons because phonetically it was a cross between the greeting used by the Hurons and the French word amis; a logical choice as a name for this gathering of young pilgrims deepening their friendship in the Lord.

ANIA 2002 participants came from the United States, Canada, Italy, France, Jamaica, Haiti, and Ecuador. The triangular flag was brought by a contingent of pilgrims from Nepal; the one in the foreground by a crew from Syria. One day the pilgrims hopped buses to the shores of Lake Huron for a day of swimming and music, which led to some line dancing.

They came from Jesuit universities, high schools, and parishes across Canada and the United States. Native Americans from Ontario and New Mexico and points in between joined youth from Italy, France, and Belgium. Those from Jamaica, Haiti, and Syria stood out by virtue of their dancing and singing; the costumes worn by the contingent from Nepal caught everyone's eye. Two students and their Jesuit teacher came from Australia. It was the first trip outside their small village for a group from Ecuador.

Sponsored by the Canadian Jesuits and organized largely through the efforts of Fr. Len Altilia, SJ, and Jesuit scholastics Michael Knox and Ramon Calzada, ANIA 2002 was conceived as a pilgrimage to sacred sites and into their history to ask for the graces the young pilgrims need to live in the contemporary world.

The pilgrims looked on themselves as walking in friendship with Jesus in the path of Charles Garnier's companions Jean de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Rene Goupil, Isaac Jogues, Jean de le Lande, Antoine Daniel, and Noel Chabenel -- Jesuit missionaries and martyrs who, 350 years ago, had found holiness in the lands of Huronia and who had shared their faith with Joseph Chiwatenhwa, Kateri Tekakwitha, and other native peoples of the time.

ANIA 2002 was planned as an Ignatian experience. Each day took as its focus the theme of one week of the Spiritual Exercises and aimed to deepen the participants' love for Jesus through prayer, experience, reflection, and action.

Morning prayer services and readings began each day's activities and exercises, which were geared to teach participants some of the history and the spirituality of the Jesuit missionaries. Afternoons were for silent prayer and group reflection. In the evenings we celebrated the Eucharist at the outdoor altar where Pope John Paul II had celebrated mass in 1984 or in the church on the grounds of the Martyrs' Shrine. Many pilgrims also took advantage of a daily, late-night vigil before the Blessed Sacrament accompanied by quiet chant in the Taize style.

About 40 Jesuit scholastics and novices from the United States and Canada, along with sisters and lay people from Jesuit parishes, schools, and Christian Life Community groups, served as spiritual animators, each accompanying a small group of pilgrims throughout the week, assisting them with their prayer and reflection.

The animators received brief but intensive training during the days before the arrival of the pilgrims to familiarize themselves with the sites the pilgrims would visit and with the readings, prayers, and reflective exercises for the week. Volunteers and chaplains from religious communities, Christian Life Communities, and the Knights of Columbus joined the spiritual animators in their work.

The pilgrims stayed in a village of a dozen large tents in Ste. Marie Park on the Wye River just below the grounds of the shrine in a beautiful and spiritually rich atmosphere. The simple housing gave the participants a taste of the experience of the missionaries who left behind the comforts of civilization as they had known it. The nightly swarms of hungry mosquitoes undeterred by repellent and the disproportionately small number of showers provided additional realism to the simulation of life as the missionaries experienced it.

Each day the pilgrims walked to a different site where the planned activities helped them learn about and reflect on the lives of the Jesuit missionaries who labored and died in the area in the mid seventeenth century.

Day One

The Pilgrim as Loved Sinner

The day began with the pilgrims praying, "Help me to have a deep sense that my Creator is also my Savior" as they set out on a four-mile hike to a lake where they boarded canoes and paddled across. A tour of an authentically reconstructed Huron village gave participants a bit of a sense of the first encounter of the French missionaries with the indigenous culture. In the evening the pilgrims attended "Saints of God," written and directed by Fr. Frank Obrigewitsch, SJ, from Campion College in Regina, Saskatchewan. The play cleverly dramatized the pilgrims' own process of learning the history of the people honored at the shrine.

Jesuit scholastics and novices from the United States and Canada, including Artur Demkowicz from Poland, were among a group who volunteered to be trained as spiritual animators, accompanying groups of pilgrims during the week.

Canadian Jesuits got the word out about ANIA 2002 via a website, www.jesuits.ca/ania2002 The 700 who attended lived in huge tents for five days and made hiking pilgrimages to sacred and historical sites around the Martyrs' Shrine in Midland, Ontario. Day four's walk, for instance, took them eight miles to St. Ignace, where Jesuits (later saints) Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were martyred.

ANIA 2002 participants celebrated mass in the evenings at the outdoor altar that Pope John Paul II used during his trip to Canada in 1984. Other times each day were set aside for reflection, discussion, prayer, and hikes to the sites.

The liturgy that closed ANIA 2002 on July 22 was in a sense a beginning for these pilgrims from around the globe, who then boarded buses to Toronto for World Youth Day with the pope. Native Americans from Canadian reserves in traditional dress added to the pagentry of the closing liturgy.

Day Two

The Pilgrim as Companion of Jesus

We spent the day at Ste. Marie Among the Hurons -- a detailed reconstruction of the settlement where Jesuits and native peoples lived and worked together. The pilgrims also explored a museum next door that described the milieu of the 1600s and displayed artifacts from the site. Alumni of Brebeuf High in Toronto provided evening entertainment by staging excerpts from the musical "Godspel," and it recapitulated the grace the pilgrims sought during the prayer and reflection of the day: "Help me to know Jesus more deeply, that I may follow him more closely and love him more dearly."

Day Three

The Pilgrim's Sabbath

Designed as a day of rest and quiet reflection after the first two days of activity, the pilgrims took a bus to Discovery Harbour on Lake Huron where they swam, played volleyball, and broke into impromptu dancing as they were entertained by a variety of musical groups. During the day they prayed, "Help me to see again the love you have shown me in these days; let me live today in gratitude." The arrival of the World Youth Day cross and a celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation marked the evening.

Day Four

The Pilgrim at the Foot of the Cross

Steve Catlin, archivist for the Martyrs' Shrine, led everyone on an eight-mile hike to St. Ignace, the site of the martyrdom of Saints Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant. Each pilgrim had the chance to reverence the relics of the saints and to touch the remains of the posts to which the martyrs were tied and tortured. The thematic prayer of the day was, "Help me to be sorrowful with Christ as he suffers for me."

Day Five

The Pilgrim Meets the Risen Lord

Shrine staff members gave talks on how one carries forth the graces of a pilgrimage into daily life. After a time for individual prayer and reflection during which the pilgrims asked for the grace to rejoice with the Risen Christ alive today, chaplains led small-group discussions on how they had experienced the resurrection in their lives. A closing liturgy commissioned the pilgrims to continue their journey to World Youth Day and on into their lives.

Fr. Michael Harter, SJ, a novice director at the Jesuit novitiate in St. Paul, wrote on Teatro la Fragua, a theater group in Honduras in Company, Winter 1996, and on life in the novitiate in Spring 2001. His photos have appeared in numerous issues.

Most pilgrimages bear their best fruit long after the physical journey is complete. This will no doubt be true for these young pilgrims. As they savor the memories and retell their stories, they will gradually appreciate and assimilate the many graces they received during ANIA 2002 -- a memorable step into their ever-deepening friendship with the Lord.