Our summer RV trip is over, but its events are now part of our shared memory and language. It was a vacation unlike one we’ve taken before, and it found its anchoring in the many holy places we visited along the way. These green hills, leafy valleys, and empty fields were the places where saints tread.

Pilgrimages are an ancient tradition, and while they cause us to think about pious processions, they do not have to meet a certain standard. Trundling down interstates, state highways, and country lanes, we found these spots nestled in the milieu of small towns across America. They are ordinary looking churches, built upon land where extraordinary lives were lived.

Religion, theology, and prayer are often regarded as boring. They are imagined to be dusty historical events without relevance in our lives, and to some, a colossal waste of time. Why drive hours to see an empty field when you can fly to an island or experience the thrill of a roller coaster. These generic-looking places are not worth the trip.

What’s missed in this misguided opinion is that these sites hold a treasure that cannot be found elsewhere. In a busy and loud world, these holy places are set apart. There is no need to worry about work, no deadlines to meet, no chores to complete. You are free to just be still and silent. These are intentionally slow places.

That’s not all. Standing in the field where St. Kateri lived is a profound statement on sainthood. It did not appear special, it looked like a field in my neighborhood. The short hike through the woods to the natural spring from which they drew water looked like the woods in my backyard. That is precisely the point. Sainthood, holiness, and goodness doesn’t require us to relocate to Italy or to spend all day within the sanctuary walls. Collecting water, cooking meals, mending houses, all of these chores are the ordinary path to sainthood.

Even more profound is to stand in the place where St. Issac Jogues ministered, was enslaved, and was murdered. It was all too easy to look down the hill where they dragged his lifeless body and threw it into the river. The same river that he and St. Kateri, decades apart, navigated as part of their daily life, the riverbed that served as his grave. To the average American, driving along the New York Throughway, it’s a generic river and a green hillside. The real story, is so much more interesting.

Peace is a difficult thing to find in life. But to spend quiet moments in these places, to experience the serenity, is a clear sign of the holiness that is present. All of us are not called to spend our lives in these places full-time, there is other work and witness that must be done. But a great secret in life is that we do best when we take the time to travel to these places and experience a real physical connection with our heritage. The Catholic Church in America today is only possible, in part, because of the heroic virtue of these saints. To be where they were, to see what they saw, to understand how close they were in proximity to our lives, is a special thing.