Washington D.C., Jan 17, 2019 / 12:01 pm
Last weekend, John Moore arrived at the Washington Monument in the US capital, after a walking pilgrimage from San Francisco that began in April 2018, in time to attend Friday's March for Life.
Moore has been accompanied in his 2,800 mile pilgrimage by Laura, one his six children, who drove and gave him assistance along the way.
The Moores are from Gallup, N.M., where they own a business renting space to RVs and campers, and John is a member of the Knights of Columbus.
"It's from the site of the March for Life West Coast in San Francisco to the National Mall in Washington DC," John told Voice of the Southwest. "I'll end on January 18th of 2019 – that's the March for Life there in Washington DC."
Speaking to the Gallup diocese's paper in May, Laura said, "Usually if we're close to the town we're staying in, we settle in to a hotel and then [I] pick him up at the end of his walk, but today he's going down a dirt road that doesn't show up very clearly on maps, so every 20 minutes I'm driving up."
Laura has been scouting the route for her father, making sure he has food and water throughout his day of walking, and picking up at the conclusion of each day's journey.
Once they got out of San Francisco, Laura said, they received a lot of support from people along the way.
"In San Francisco there were a lot of people who got in my dad's face and were screaming at him pretty vulgarly. And then the further away we get from San Francisco the more support he gets. Not that he didn't expect the bad stuff. He just kept his mouth shut and kept walking."
"It actually surprises me how many non-religious people are intrigued by what he does. We've had a couple people stop to talk to us and they're not religious at all. They don't know anything about the March for Life," said Laura. "People will stop and give my dad water, some people will walk with him for as long as they can, some people will give him money. A lot of people tell him how cool they think it is."
John intends to donate the money he's received along the way to the Knights of Columbus for its effort to provide ultrasound machines to pro-life pregnancy centers; the project recently donated its 1,000th machine to the Mother of Mercy Free Medical Clinic in the Diocese of Arlington.
He's been making walking pilgrimages for some time: he's walked at least 13 times to the shrine of Chimayo; made a Kansas pilgrimage in honor of Fr. Emil Kapaun, an army chaplain who died in a prisoner of war camp during the Korean war; and walked to the Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta in Las Cruces, and to Mount Cristo Rey outside El Paso.
As he walks, John carries one of two wooden crosses: one displaying the Divine Mercy, and a chaplain's cross and barbed wire in honor of Fr. Kapaun, and another with the Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Laura told Voice of the Southwest it would be an opportunity for spiritual growth for her, and a chance to grow even closer to her father.
"I think that God's been preparing me to learn how to be alone, and I feel like that's what this road trip is – gonna help me ultimately be alone with myself and be friends with myself and get closer to God in that aspect," she said. "I feel like I'm really blessed with this opportunity to spend all day focusing on it instead of having to make time for it."
John spoke recently to Columbia magazine about his cross-country pilgrimage, saying he walks "to humble myself before God, to be a witness for Christ and to pray for others … It's a walk of faith."
"If I'm out in the middle of nowhere on a trail, I'll pray the rosary. But when you're walking a pilgrimage like this, it's very dangerous. You can't be listening to music. You always have to pay attention and stay focused."
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He said his devotion to Fr. Kapaun is rooted in the fact that "his faith was greater than his fears. I'll tell you what: I'm kind of a big chicken. I hate heights and have to go over big bridges. And the farther east we go, all this traffic makes you anxious."
"It's a daily grind and sometimes I don't want to walk, but you just have to go and not do anything stupid. It takes a lot of faith. Faith has to be greater than your fears," John told Columbia.
"This not a matter of me being successful. It's a matter of keeping a promise – a promise I made to the Knights, to the people at the March for Life, to the unborn and to God."
