Running Home to Our Lady: The Walk to Mary [Champion Blog by Halle Beranek]

Like a mother seeing her children run into her arms, imagine Our Lady’s face seeing her children running home to her and her Son. This May, thousands of pilgrims will come home to Mary where she made her presence known in Wisconsin, among them, the Allex family who share the fruits of pilgrimage to Our Lady.

This is the ninth year that Kym Allex and her family are pilgrims in the Walk to Mary. Their first year was marked with their growing family of six children in tow, and while two new children have joined the Allex family since that first year, Kym shares that each year the Walk has been a fruit in the lives of their children. Now with eight children ranging ages four to eighteen, the Allex family will be walking for the first time, the full 22-mile pilgrimage from the National Shrine of St. Joseph to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion.

Gather the Children

While the children may be growing taller and stronger to make the longer journey, Kym sees their commitment to the full journey of the Walk to Mary as more about their spiritual growth and stamina. Through the walk “I see how it is part of the fruits in the lives of my children” says Kym as she shares some of the graces her children have received. “My three teenage sons express interest in going to seminary days” and they speak regularly with a vocations director. “My 17-year old daughter is open to whatever mission God has for her.” Kym says her daughter took Our Lady’s words to Servant of God Adele Brice as a rallying cry to go and teach the children. Even Kym’s youngest has internalized her faith, decorating a Lenten prayer space in her room with pink and purple and placing her Mary doll next to her princess dolls because she says “I’m a princess of God.”

Kym shares that she and her husband have been intentional about embracing their faith in ways their children can take stride in. On family vacations they make pilgrimages to local churches, shrines, or other holy sites, showing their children tangible ways that faith can be moving in everyday life. But they understand that children embracing their faith can change. Kym has walked alongside families whose children have left the faith, but she finds that sharing the image of teenage and young children embracing their faith wholly is inspiring.

Kym looks to Adele Brice whose example of love was an outpouring of love to her neighbors, as she gathered children and the community around to share God’s love through accompaniment and discipleship. “She brought people closer to love the story of Christ” and “in my ministry Adele has been a role model. Adele went through so much and always said yes.”

From Adele, Kym has learned the importance of discerning when to say yes. “We say yes to so many things but don’t discern the meaning of our yes. Adele discerned when to say yes to make sure that her yes was full and meaningful so that she could love well.” In Kym’s walk to Mary she sees her motherhood as learning to discern how to say yes including all the physical limitations that one may have: stepping back to pray and then entering all in.

Say Yes to Our Lady

The Walk to Mary is just one way that the Allex family has said “yes” to the prompting of Our Lady. “We are blessed to know a spiritual mother in heaven who is a role model of pure generosity, unwavering love, and commitment to family” Mary has answered their prayers again and again as the holy family inspires the Allex family to build up the communion of saints starting with the Church around them. Gratefully, Kym shares that “It means so much to know and see the blessings that Mary and Jesus give to my family.”

Though 22 miles sounds like a lot and it is overwhelming to picture that journey, Kym suggests that readers start somewhere. Kym and her husband invited their in-laws to join in The Walk every year. Finally, last year Kym’s in-laws who flew in from Fargo, ND took part in the children’s walk. Due to restrictions from her mother-in-law’s Multiple Sclerosis, she could not do long distances but she could do the children’s walk with the young Allex children and it brought her joy and peace.

“Please join for two, seven, fourteen, or all 22 miles. Pick one journey to make to Our Lady and her Son,” says Kym who shares that the Mass at the culmination of the pilgrimage is the most beautiful homecoming, filled with joy and hope that reminds us of the heavenly feast awaiting when we run home to Our Lady and Our Savior in Heaven.

Register for the Walk to Mary at https://walktomary.com/