With great joy I greet you on behalf of the Pilgrims of 2012. I am so pleased to share with you back home that these pilgrims are...not surprisingly...bonding into an incredible group of men and women who are falling more in love with the Lord with each passing moment of this journey as they walk in His footsteps.
So, as usual, because of time constraints, I will post some pictures of the events of our Day 4 (Friday). I will create and edit the videos when I am able to find the time. (The long plane flight back looks very promising for video editing.)
Day 4 began at Cana of Galilee. There we renewed Marriage Vows for those married couples traveling together. After I led each couple in the renewal of their vows, the couple kissed and Fr. Peter blessed them with holy water, as with J and S below:
Each of the couples was blessed by this part of our day. It is, as you can imagine, a memory they will always cherish:
From Cana, we went on to Nazareth. It was nice to get a perspective of the distance that Jesus, Mary, and the Disciples traveled to attend the wedding at Cana. We were, of course, riding a bus and not walking, but we still got the perspective.
In Nazareth, we visited the Church of the Annunciation and celebrated Mass in the place where the angel appeared to Mary:
After Mass, we went to lunch and that is where we encountered Archbishop Dolan, and I have already posted some pictures of that nice surprise. We have actually run into him and his group several more times; he was celebrating Mass here at the Mt. of Beatitudes yesterday (Saturday), they were at Tabgha (more on that site in another post), another site we were visiting later on, and, they came to the same place we were eating lunch. I will post more on that later, but we also met the Archbishop of Kansas City and the Archbishop of Canterbury!
I digress.
After lunch, we went to Mt. Tabor, the site of Jesus' Transfiguration. It was, well, let's just say a "thrilling" ride up the mountain. Quite a few curves and a very, very narrow road. There is a Church there and the view is breathtaking. I hope the video, which will come later, will give you a nice perspective of the view, but here is the Church...
...and some of the pilgrims listening to Fr. Peter fills us in on the history of the place:
It was a long but powerful day. We concluded the day as we are concluding each day with a nice dinner and then we gathered after dinner to pray and share our day with each other.
Today, Sunday, we celebrate Mass here on the Mt. of Beatitudes and then we leave this beatiful place and head toward Jerusalem. We will go up to the top of the Golan Heights for a breaktaking view of the entire Sea of Galilee, then we will stop off at Jericho, and ultimately, check into rooms at Notre Dame in Jerusalem. It is, by the way, the same place Archbishop Dolan and his priests are staying. :)
Blessings to all back in Big D...I will post again when I can.
are you stalking Archbishop Dolan? :)
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