Pilgrim Tales: Pilgrimage to L5
… Lucy and her mother aren’t just Catholic tourists. They’re seeking a new life after the death of Lucy’s father, and Lucy’s mom took them on this pilgrimage for help finding her new way forward. — “Pilgrimage to L5”
Churches were boring. And sad.
I’m tired of being bored and sad, she thought, casting her eyes upward. God, couldn’t something exciting happen?
Not everybody thinks pilgrimages are exciting. Eight-year-old Lucy Granger sure didn’t. In Pilgrimage to the L5 Space Station, she gets the chance to go to the home of the founder of the famous Rescue Sisters—St. Gillian of L5—on the anniversary of her sainthood, even. But it’s a lot of listening, looking, and praying, and she’d rather be doing something more exciting.
When the station’s cat leads her to the escape pod, she’s in for more excitement than she expects!
When CWG decided to make an anthology based on pilgrimages, I admit I was a little stumped at first. I’ve been on a couple of pilgrimages myself, but I’m a sci-fi writer. How could I make a pilgrimage in space—and even more, make it exciting in the way people expect sci-fi to be exciting?
I have a standard Catholic SF universe I write in: The Rescue Sisters (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L59B69G). This is a group of intrepid women religious who do search and rescue operations, run orphanages and hospitals, and work in safety capacities—all in outer space. My husband and I came up with the idea and we have six short stories and two books in the series so far, three of which are for children.
So I wanted to do another Rescue Sisters story for the anthology. The pilgrimage part wasn’t too hard. I had my own built-in-saint, St. Gillian of L5, founder of Our Order of the Rescue (a.k.a. the Rescue Sisters). It would be fun to return to her old stomping grounds. I’d already done an L5 story, “These Three,” so it let me bring some favorite characters back.
Next, I had to set up the rescue. What could be more natural than a bored child wandering off and getting into trouble? Toss in a cat who’s only too glad to help, and some fun complications, and that part was taken care of.
But what makes a Rescue Sisters story really good is the secondary plot—something tying into their identity not just as rescuers but as Catholics. That’s when I came up with the idea that Lucy and her mother aren’t just Catholic tourists. They’re seeking a new life after the death of Lucy’s father, and Lucy’s mom took them on this pilgrimage for help finding her new way forward.
I think the most life-changing pilgrimages happen when someone comes seeking a new way — a new way to live, a new way to love, a new way to heal.
Jesus said, “I am the Way,” yet how he leads us can be very different. Lucy’s mom finds her way—but in the course of her adventure, so does Lucy—and discovers church isn’t so boring after all.
Read “Pilgrimage to L5” in Pilgrim Tales: a Catholic Writers Guild Short Story Anthology starting this December on Amazon.
© Copyright 2025 by Karina Fabian
Edited by Mary McWilliams
