Sep 10, 2006 By Amanda Clegg 3 min read

The seeds of faith their parents planted years ago bloom annually for many of the pilgrims trekking the hills of Mount Saint Macrina over Labor Day weekend year after year. Standing back from the crowd of worshipers listening to the service at the Mother of God Shrine on Monday morning, Barbara Christopher of McClellandtown reminisced about coming to the pilgrimage as a child with her parents and five siblings.

“I can still remember going to the different shrines when I was young,” the 49 year-old said “(The pilgrimage) gives me a sense of peace with all the chaos in the world today. Everyone needs that sense of security.”

And an increased number of young families might have sought that security this year.

The annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Perpetual Help held Sept. 1-4, which concluded for the 72nd time Monday morning, welcomed an increase in “young families, children and teenagers,” Sister Carol Petrasovich said, speculating that the increase in young people in attendance was due in part to wider publicity for the annual event. She noted that the event was a “blessed, peace-filled pilgrimage.”

The Rev. Kevin E. Marks, chaplain, said the holiday weekend welcomed more than 2,000 pilgrims and was a “good, prayerful, experience” with participants taking home “what they behold here.”

Dorothy Medvitz of Uniontown said she takes home a feeling of intimacy with her faith every year.

“It just makes you feel closer to your beliefs,” she said. “The pilgrimage brings out the best in you.”

The youngest of 10 children, Medvitz began attending because of her parent’s “deep religious belief,” she said, agreeing with Christopher that the experience changes with time.

“As a very young kid it’s a lot of fun running around with the other kids,” she said. “In my teens it meant more spiritually.”

Jim and Chris Loya, of Cleveland, Ohio, hope to plant the seed of faith in their children – Meghan, 8; Joey, 6; Andrew, 4; and Emily, 1.

Jim Loya first came to the pilgrimage with a youth group when he was a teenager and now wants to give his children “pleasant memories” and a portion of what he and his wife take away from the pilgrimage on a “deeper level” today, he said.

Although what each pilgrim takes home might change over the years, Christopher finds her faith at the root of her yearly attendance.

“As a child you don’t understand as much as you do as you grow older. My faith is deeper as I get older,” she said. “I don’t see how people survive in the world without faith.”