Pictures of the Day: Prayers from Knock

So, last week I finally returned to Knock again.  Twenty years ago this year I made my first pilgrimage there, in the fall after I graduated from college.  I walked - and hitch hiked - there from Belfast.  I'd meant to try to make it all the way to Jerusalem by foot that time, but I only actually made it as far as Rome, and that mostly by bus, not foot..

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is all too weak.

This time I've made no such stupid resolutions, and am going to get to as many places as I can, any way I can. Still, I am back on that old path.  I'll write about the genesis of the urge to do this, and other ancillary topics soon. In the meantime, I give you a little photo essay from the shrine up at Knock:

The facade of the original parish church, Msgr. Horan's ugly modernesque basilica in background.

Interior of said parish. Old School Irish Catholic Style.

Chapel of the Apparition, on back of the parish church.

The parish church, from vantage of the basilica.

This is what happens when you give some odd Irishman a camera..

Slightly better, this time.

The promised candle.

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