Pilgrimage has a long history in our faith tradition. Once the temple was built at Jerusalem (ca. 957 B.C.), all Jewish men were obliged to present themselves at it for the three major feasts: Pesach (the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or Passover), Shavu’ot (the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost), and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles, or Festival of Ingathering), as per God’s ordinance in Deuteronomy 16:16-17. On their way to the Temple, they would sing the “pilgrim songs” (also called “songs of assent” or “gradual canticles”), namely, Psalms 119-133. To this day, these feasts are called, “Pilgrimage Festivals” by the Jews.
After the death and resurrection of the Incarnate God and the spread of Christianity, adherents felt a longing to tread in the footsteps of their Savior, His Holy Mother, and His chosen followers, the holy Apostles. Even in the early centuries, when millions of Christians were martyred for their Faith, the faithful flocked to the tombs of favorite saints to venerate their remains, sometimes at the risk of being martyred themselves. What were their motives? Some pilgrimages were done in penance for sin; some were done in petition for a special blessing or favor; and some were undertaken simply out of devotion.
One of the earliest usages of the word is found in the writings of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430). His work, Peregrinatio, described a Christian spiritual journey as a kind of self-imposed exile of the pilgrim in which he searched for God’s Truth in his wanderings while visiting the holy shrines of the Faith.
Excerpt from http://catholicism.org/catholic-pilgrimage-a-spiritual-journey.htmlSuggestions for making a fruitful Pilgrimage