A Catechumenate for Marriage: Presacramental Preparation as Pilgrimage

Victor W. Turner's research found that the power to transform participants in rites of passage lay in liminality and that pilgrimages generate the same kind of transformative power. Pilgrims, like "liminars," exhibit a special mode of social relatedness that binds them together on their spiritual journey. In their communion they are ritually brought into increasingly intimate contact with the sacred truths that will constitute their transformed identity at the pilgrimage center. Turner's anthropology, along with a brief study of the diary of Egeria, a paradigmatic liturgical pilgrim of the early fifth century, form the basis of a theological discussion of the presacramental preparation for marriage. This process is treated as a pilgrimage punctuated with "way-stations," that is, ritual experiences along the route of a marriage catechumenate. I argue that marriage-aspilgrimage should be the Catholic Church's strategy for readying Christian fiancés to be transformed into Christian spouses on their wedding day.