Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler

In 1858, in an unassuming town in the southwest of France, a 14-year-old peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous claimed she had 18 encounters with the Virgin Mary. Since then, Lourdes has become one of the holiest Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world, visited annually by more than five million people who come in search of healing from its sacred waters. Since the end of World War II, soldiers from around the world have journeyed to Lourdes seeking healing and unity with one another at a week-long gathering known as the International Military Pilgrimage.

The Island of Shikoku in Japan is the birthplace of the most revered figure in Japanese Buddhism, the monk and teacher Kobo Daishi, who brought a populist form of Buddhism to Japan from China in the 9th Century. For hundreds of years, a 750-mile pilgrimage route has circled this mountainous island, connecting 88 separate temples and shrines that claim connection to the Great Master - Kobo Daishi. Host Bruce Feiler circles the island, following a pilgrim trail that's taken by hundreds of thousands of Japanese and international pilgrims every year; a Buddhist pilgrimage that welcomes pilgrims of all faiths. While the majority now drive or travel by train or bus - a two-week journey - many still set aside 60 or more days to walk the entire route, especially in the spring when the cherry blossoms are in bloom and pilgrimage season is at its height. Temple priests introduce Bruce to sacred ceremonies that date back thousands of years, revealing how the presence of Kobo Daishi is believed to accompany all who follow in his footsteps. Out on the pilgrim trail, Bruce meets with different American walkers - a hiking group from the Pacific Northwest, a retired soldier from California, and two recently-married doctors from Indiana - to learn why they've come to Shikoku and what they are hoping to find.

The Hebrew Bible instructs all Jews to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year: in spring for Passover, in summer for Shavuout, and in the fall for Sukkot. But the city is holy to more than just Jews: Christian pilgrims began coming to Jerusalem and the Holy Land within centuries of Jesus' death, and the Al Aksa Mosque, located inside the walls of the Old City, is considered the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

"The Hajj is the iconic pilgrimage on Earth," says host Bruce Feiler, as millions of pilgrims gather in the valleys outside the city of Mecca in today's Saudi Arabia to take part in the annual five-day pilgrimage every Muslim hopes to complete at least once. Since non-Muslims aren't permitted in Mecca, Bruce's surrogate is Anisa Mehdi, a veteran reporter of the Hajj, with whom Bruce will Skype at regular intervals. Anisa joins a group of Muslim pilgrims from Boston who begin their journey in Medina, the second of Islam's holy cities. As the pilgrims visit sites in Medina associated with the life of the Prophet Muhammad, Bruce enlists the help of a historian and an eminent American Muslim scholar to explore the origins of the religion and its iconic pilgrimage. In 622CE Muhammad fled his birthplace of Mecca after persecution by its pagan rulers who objected to him preaching a new monotheism. Muhammad and a small group of followers settled in Medina. Within ten years Islam was the dominant religion of Arabia and Muhammad returned to Mecca in triumph to clear idols from the holy sites and teach his followers the different stages of the Hajj pilgrimage. The Boston pilgrims follow Muhammad's path from Medina to Mecca, beginning their Hajj by circling the Ka'aba, the ancient shrine at the center of Mecca's Great Mosque. Muslims believe the Ka'aba was first built by Abraham, patriarch of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Stripping themselves of worldly possessions for the duration of the Hajj, the pilgrims enact the rituals laid out by Muhammad, experiencing exhaustion, injury and elation as they seek forgiveness and inner peace. They leave with a new sense of connection to humanity, and to the one-and-a-half billion people that make up the worldwide community of Muslims.

The Kumbh Mela, the Hindu festival when pilgrims bathe where two sacred rivers meet, is explored.

African-American pilgrims attend an annual festival in honor of the Yoruba goddess Osun in Nigeria.