I am writing this bulletin article from Jerusalem in the middle of our pilgrimage. It has been an amazing journey for all of us and I hope you have been able to join us online on Facebook. Kim has done a great job chronicling our journey along the way and posted those photos each night. I am very grateful to her for all her hard work on this pilgrimage and posting online. She has done a fantastic job.
It is hard to highlight any one place or event as there were multiple each day of the trip. But we had two nights when people could share their graced moments of the trip and one of the most common was our experience on the boat in Galilee. We took off from Capernaum where Jesus lived during his ministry in Galilee and then sailed along the shoreline where so many of the places we hear in scripture are mentioned such as Mount of the Beatitudes, Peter’s original call of vocation while he was fishing and where Jesus appeared to them after he was raised from the dead and fed them fish for breakfast. Wow! It was so powerful to turn off the engines and sit in the quiet of the Sea of Galilee taking it all in by imagining ourselves being there when Jesus was preaching to the crowd from the boat with Peter. It was a powerful graced moment.
One of the most powerful days we had in Jerusalem was today when we got up early and walked and prayed the real Stations of the Cross on Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, the street that Jesus would have walked and then celebrated Mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the place of crucifixion, calvary hill and Jesus’ tomb. It was an incredible moment of grace for all of us. To be where Jesus walked on Via Dolorosa brought many of us to tears in awe. We have several cantors and musicians with us that have made each site visit powerful through the beauty of song. You know how I feel about music and how it can touch the soul in ways that words alone cannot do as easily. Singing those Good Friday songs along the Via Dolorosa was moving beyond words. When we got to the Holy Sepulchre there were no crowds, so we were able to complete the stations inside the Church. Our guide assured us that in his 20 years of leading pilgrimages here he has never been able to have a group pray the whole stations “inside the church.” Then we closed that morning with Mass in the Holy Sepulchre itself. Again, an incredible moment for all of us.
Every day we celebrated Mass at a different holy site, and we remembered our community of St. Simon in prayer. I hope you have felt those prayers over the last 10 days. I will share more of our pilgrimage highlights in the weeks ahead and I am sure that I will preach about in the months ahead. I always find after a pilgrimage, the stories of the trip find their way into my homilies and deepen my understanding of scripture and Jesus’ gift of love to us.
I move on from Jerusalem to Petra in Jordan with half of the pilgrims. Please pray for safe travel for those coming home and those continuing their travels with me. I look forward to seeing you next weekend. A reminder that next Saturday, October 15, 9am our Hope & Wellness team are having a Wellness Walk. They will walk from Saint Simon to Grant Park and back with refreshments following. You can register here. They are also hosting a workshop, “Building Resilience in Troubling Times” starting on Monday, October 10, 7-8:30pm on Zoom. You can register here and more information here.
God Bless
Fr. Brendan