Greetings from the Holy Land. I post this message on Monday evening...Day 7...after another long day. This day was a day with pretty consistent rain, but many more blessings. We are as blessed as we are tired. Mass at Shepherd's Field, a visit to the Milk Grotto, the Church of the Incarnation, and the Church where Peter denied Jesus.
I will tell you more when I get to Day 7, but let me just "tease" the upcoming post by saying that the Lord gave us another sign of His love and guidance today. On the way through the streets of Bethlehem to the Shepherd's Field (where the angel appeared to the shepherds), guess what caused us to stop still in the street? That's right...a shepherd leading his sheep across the street. In 25 years of leading pilgrims, Fr. Peter has never had that happen before, and he thought it was pretty cool. More on that to come.
I am going to attempt to catch up on at least the daily posts. The videos will come when I can get to them. They take around 2 hours to upload to YouTube, so I will try to edit and process them and then upload them as I go to bed.
At any rate, let's go back to Day 5 as I have not been able to really fill you in.
Day 5 was Saturday, and we began our journey at the Church of the Primacy of Peter...the Church built over what is believed to be the rock where Jesus stood, after His resurrection, and called out to the disciples who were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee fishing. When they came ashore, Jesus prepared breakfast for them and asked Peter 3 times if he loved Him. Three times Peter said "yes." Feed my sheep...feed my lambs...feed my sheep. The Primacy of Peter. Jesus called Peter to lead His Church on earth. Two thousand years later the successor of Peter is still feeding the sheep. It is so cool to be Catholic.
Here is a shot of the rock believed to be that very same rock:
The pilgrims took the opportunity to do what most pilgrims do here and that is to find some pebbles from the shore to take home for memories.
Jesus lived in Capernaum during His public ministry. The Mass was a Mass celebrating St. Peter's acceptance of Jesus' call to serve. The Church is not my favorite architecturally, as it is very modern and in the round, but Jesus was there, of course, as we celebrated the Mass.
When Mass was over, we moved over to the ruins of the synagogue where Jesus preached the 6th Chapter of John. It was so powerful to hear His words about the reality of eating his Body and drinking His blood while standing in that very place. Jesus spoke to the folks and did not call the disciples back who left...they could not accept the reality of His teaching:
Then, we had the opportunity to do what Jesus did. We went down to the shore and prayed in quiet and in solitude. A quiet, prayerful time that was such a blessing.
On to lunch at a restaraunt that serves the St. Peter's Fish...a fish that only exists in the Sea of Galilee and one other lake. It was a wonderful lunch, made better by the fact that we were joined by my new best friend, the soon-to-be Cardinal Archbishop of New York. (He is in the room two rooms down from me...we talked again in the hall the last evening.) We also encountered, believe it or not, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who came in with his whole group. Fr. Peter had a chat with him.
After lunch, we headed to the Jesus Boat for a ride on the Sea of Galilee. I am working on the video of this boat ride, which will most likely come in two parts because there is so much video. We prayed and we played. It is a beautiful witness to being so alive in the Lord that we can both pray and mediate on His goodness, and then dance unto the Lord with joy. You will want to see these videos when I get them done!
Finally, we drove around to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and went to Kursi, where Jesus cast out the demons into the swine and the swine were sent to their death in the sea. Not really much to see there, but some of the pilgrims climbed up the steps to a high point to get the sense of it.
After they came back down, we got a group shot of almost all of the pilgrims, although a few had already gone to the bus. Our smiling faces:
As I said, this blog is an update on Saturday. If you are following the itenerary, please know that Monday and Tuesday has switched...what was scheduled for Tuesday, we did today. What was scheduled for Monday, we will do tomorrow.
Blessings to all back home, and thanks for following us. We have had more than 1,350 views, so that seems to me to mean that you are following your family and friends very faithfully. Any suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated in the comment section or, if you have my email, please feel free to email me.
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