What a nice surprise the Lord gave us (He sure is doing that a lot!). This happened on Day 7, which was January 30th.
On the way to Shepherds' Field in Bethlehem, the Lord provided a very nice real life situation: a shepherd and his sheep stopped our traffic so that the sheep could follow him to a better place. (It is not, of course, real life back in Dallas, but it is here. That is part of what makes this journey so special...to see what was real life to Jesus.)
In 25 years serving here, Fr. Peter had never before been stopped on the way to Shepherds' Field by a shepherd and his sheep!
The video doesn't do justice to the awesome life lesson, but here it is anyway to let you know what we experienced on the way to Mass:
We then celebrated Mass in a small cave at Shepherd's Field. This was one more of so many moving experiences as we talked about how the shepherds responded to God's message and went immediately as God had suggested.
After a visit to the Milk Grotto, it was finally time to go to the Church of the Nativity to the spot where Jesus was born. As you watch the upcoming video, keep in mind that sound is one of the very important senses that helps us experience something new. This video is a good example of the importance of sound in our journey.
It is also an overview, so it starts before we encountered the sheep above. A bit out of order, but I think you get the message.
We then moved on to the next step which was actually entering the Church through the very small door. An act of humility to bow down upon entering the place where Jesus was born.
After we were all finally able to squeeze into the Church, which was actually very large on the level we entered, we then went downstairs to the actual birthplace of Jesus to worship Him. We waited for a while, but only because there were some Franciscans there having Morning Prayer. Once we finally got in, we experienced a profound time of His presence.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Day 6: Down the Mountain
Shalom, Ya'll:
In this video, you are going to witness some incredible bus driving by our bus driver, Ahmed.
We were just at the top of the Golan Heights overlooking the Sea of Galilee. There were some on our bus who, well, closed their eyes and really couldn't watch. I am not sure if the video really does it justice, but take a look anyway.
In this video, you are going to witness some incredible bus driving by our bus driver, Ahmed.
We were just at the top of the Golan Heights overlooking the Sea of Galilee. There were some on our bus who, well, closed their eyes and really couldn't watch. I am not sure if the video really does it justice, but take a look anyway.
Day 6: Beatitudes, Golan Heights, Jericho and on to Jerusalem
Shalom, Ya'll...
Day 6, which was Sunday January 29th, began with Mass at the Mt. of Beatitudes. We reflected upon how important the Beatitudes are as they really give us direction from God as to how we are really suppose to live our lives.
After reading an excerpt from a blog sent to me by my dear wife back home, I asked the pilgrims a question: how many of us could name all of the Beatitudes? No one could...including Fr. Peter and myself. So, I challenged all of us to learn the Beatitudes over the next however many months. Not only to learn them, though, but to live them. Seems important enough that we should spend some time learning those, don't you think?
After Mass, we departed the beautiful, peaceful, and holy Mt. of Beatitudes for our journey toward Jerusalem.
We then drove up to the Golan Heights for a view of the entire Sea of Galilee. It was a bit cloudy, but we were still able to see the entire length of the lake.
From there, we went down the "back way" on our way to Jericho. I cannot describe the journey down those hills, but the video...if I am ever able to upload it...will tell it all! Some on the bus had their eyes closed the entire time. What a thrill.
We did survive, however, and arrived at the oasis and oldest city in the world, Jericho to have lunch and view the Mt. of Temptation. It is believed that the devil took Jesus to the top of this mountain to tempt Him. We did not go up to the top, we just viewed from a distance.
After lunch, we left and went on to Jerusalem.
Day 6, for the most part, was a day of travel and the viewing of historical sites. It wasn't an overwhelming spiritual day, as some have been, but it was very important from the aspect of gaining perspective and insight to the land and the times of Jesus. We spent a good amount of time on the bus...saw various terrain there in the area, and we even saw some bedouin out the window tending their sheep.
Stay tuned for Day 7: it will prove to be just the opposite, as it was a powerful day spent mostly in Bethlehem...the place of Jesus' birth. I will get to that as soon as I can. In the meantime, I hope I am able to post a video soon if I can somehow overcome the interenet problems.
Blessings to all.
Day 6, which was Sunday January 29th, began with Mass at the Mt. of Beatitudes. We reflected upon how important the Beatitudes are as they really give us direction from God as to how we are really suppose to live our lives.
After reading an excerpt from a blog sent to me by my dear wife back home, I asked the pilgrims a question: how many of us could name all of the Beatitudes? No one could...including Fr. Peter and myself. So, I challenged all of us to learn the Beatitudes over the next however many months. Not only to learn them, though, but to live them. Seems important enough that we should spend some time learning those, don't you think?
After Mass, we departed the beautiful, peaceful, and holy Mt. of Beatitudes for our journey toward Jerusalem.
We then drove up to the Golan Heights for a view of the entire Sea of Galilee. It was a bit cloudy, but we were still able to see the entire length of the lake.
From there, we went down the "back way" on our way to Jericho. I cannot describe the journey down those hills, but the video...if I am ever able to upload it...will tell it all! Some on the bus had their eyes closed the entire time. What a thrill.
We did survive, however, and arrived at the oasis and oldest city in the world, Jericho to have lunch and view the Mt. of Temptation. It is believed that the devil took Jesus to the top of this mountain to tempt Him. We did not go up to the top, we just viewed from a distance.
After lunch, we left and went on to Jerusalem.
Day 6, for the most part, was a day of travel and the viewing of historical sites. It wasn't an overwhelming spiritual day, as some have been, but it was very important from the aspect of gaining perspective and insight to the land and the times of Jesus. We spent a good amount of time on the bus...saw various terrain there in the area, and we even saw some bedouin out the window tending their sheep.
Stay tuned for Day 7: it will prove to be just the opposite, as it was a powerful day spent mostly in Bethlehem...the place of Jesus' birth. I will get to that as soon as I can. In the meantime, I hope I am able to post a video soon if I can somehow overcome the interenet problems.
Blessings to all.
Day 6:Blessed are we...
As we prepare to celebrate the Mass of the Beatitudes here on the Mt. of Beatitudes and then head off to Jerusalem, I wanted to share a quick thought with you.
Every day that we have been here so far, there has been a rainbow sighting. A couple of those days, the rainbow has been a full rainbow...we could see both ends of the rainbow. All of us feel it is just the Lord's visual reminder that He is with us and He is blessing us.
A pilgrim caught this picture that I share with you now:
Every day that we have been here so far, there has been a rainbow sighting. A couple of those days, the rainbow has been a full rainbow...we could see both ends of the rainbow. All of us feel it is just the Lord's visual reminder that He is with us and He is blessing us.
A pilgrim caught this picture that I share with you now:
Monday, January 30, 2012
Day 5: Joy On The Jesus Boat
Shalom, Ya'll...
A trip like this is not all pray. There is some play as well. And, on the Sea of Galilee...we prayed and then played.
Our pilgrims let go and had a great time. I hope you enjoy.
A trip like this is not all pray. There is some play as well. And, on the Sea of Galilee...we prayed and then played.
Our pilgrims let go and had a great time. I hope you enjoy.
Day 5 Overview: Tabgha, Peter's Primacy, Capernaum, Boatride, Kersi
Shalom, Ya'll...
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:
We finished here and went on to Capernaum to celebrate Mass in the Church that is built over the house of St. Peter. There are ruins that are believed to be the house of St. Peter. Jesus healed Peter's mother-in law there:
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:
We left Capernaum and went back down the road to Tabgha, where it is believed that Jesus multiplied the fishes and loaves. It is a Benedictine run place, so Fr. Peter, the Franciscan, didn't spend much time there. :)
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.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Day 4 Overview: Cana, Nazareth, and Mt. Tabor
Shalom, Ya'll:
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)