成人论坛

This Lent the Bishop of Leicester is redefining the pilgrimage.

He's putting on his walking boots and is going to visit as many churches as he can before Easter Sunday.

Listen: Interview with the Bishop of Leicester

成人论坛 Leicester's Ben Jackson spoke to Dr Tim Stevens...

Bishop Tim says he's hoping to walk 10 miles a day, for four days a week.

By the end of Lent he aims to have visited 123 churches in Leicestershire and have walked over 200 miles. But why's he doing it?

"Lent is a special time in the Christian tradition, it's a time of preparation for Easter.

The Bishop of Leicester, Rev Tim Stevens

"By tradition people have either made pilgrimages or perhaps they've fasted or they've tried to remind themselves of the life of prayer.

"I lead a pretty busy life so I thought it'd be a good thing to change pace a little bit to get closer to local communities and kind of work out what a pilgrimage might look like today.

"So the way to do it was to visit as many of the communities that I can each time I shall stop for prayer at each of the churches, three or four times a day, but also visiting schools and hospitals and other institutions as I go."

He says that he's looking forward to meeting people along the way, and he'd be pleased to stop and talk to anybody who would like to speak to him.

The Bishop wants his journey to remind other people in his diocese to take some time out from ordinary life to slow down and "attend to our inner life."