Day 7 Pilgrim Blog - Galilee

By Pilgrim Natalie Ambrose

As usual we start at the crack of dawn, imagine a hot sweltering desert, Israel is nothing like that. Lauren and I are sitting eating mangos and discussing what needs to go in the blog. But it’s funny how the Middle East for us has always been this image of adventure, dessert storms, camels, war the basic image that Disney’s Aladdin planted in our brains. We find Israel to be nothing like those Arabian nights. In fact I would go so far as to say that Israel is a mini America except that it is busting at the seams with a long tradition of faith and culture that is still continued to this day, regardless of how westernized the region has become.

We start off on another huge day for adventure, I’m tired and want to catch up on sleep, but as always I get on the bus. Our first stop was the ruins at Corizan. Slightly uneventful as this part was, it’s incredible at the basic knowledge that you are standing in a place that people from 1000’s of years ago lived and prayed in. I think the highlight or me at this particular sight was the weird looking beavers, they were some sort of wild animal that was walking around the ruins, it was like a family of them. I have never seen anything like them in my life, I don’t even know what they are. For someone who likes chasing things, these furry little creatures were way too weird for me to want to follow.

Once again, I sleep on the bus as a way for me to catch up on much needed sleep. When I wake up we have arrived at the Franciscan Church. This is a church that was built up over the ancient house of Peter the apostle. Hot, bothered and tired I walk over to the church, I can’t even focus on what our tour guide is saying, the church is quite modern with a glass floor so that the congregation can see right through to Peter’s house. Making our way outside our chaplain Fr Simon sits us down and does a gospel reading under a tree, I honestly don’t think I was even paying attention, but as I gazed out at the Sea of Galilee as though my guardian angel kicked me in the backside, I realized how stupid I have treated this whole day so far. This Pilgrimage for me was a gift, a treasure, a miracle, that someone like me could even get this opportunity. I needed to treat each day and each thing that we did as a treasure, as a gift, as a miracle. What was I doing? I was being lazy, selfish and I was wasting precious time to fully experience this. I had come to the realization that I wasn’t putting in 100% to what we were doing. I was wasting a God given opportunity and this realization, that I may never get this chance again made me spring up to my feet and run. I ran back to Christ, present in the Church. I sat down in the heat and I prayed. I had never felt more energized, I looked at the House of Peter underneath this Church, I took photos – in short, I experienced.

Come the next activity planned for us, I was ready to go, still tired, I didn’t let this get in the way of the day. Where to? Why the Sea of Galilee of course! All of the Exodus pilgrims along with the other Sydney pilgrimage Shores of Galilee met up in three life-sized replicas of a ship that our Lord would have used. Together with the chaplains from both pilgrimages, Bishop Julian Porteous and His Eminence George Cardinal Pell we sailed out to the middle of the Sea and celebrated Mass together. What a beautiful Mass it was! There really isn’t quite anything like it, having partaken in a Mass on the Sea of Galilee, being where Jesus had been. It is a moment I will carry on in my heart for the rest of my life. After the Mass, what followed was somewhere between a high seas boat party, a celebration of Christ, with young adults from across Sydney all mixed together with really good Jewish music. There was dancing, laughing, and just a lot of fun between people who had just encountered Christ. Even the Cardinal was dancing! The Joy that filled our boats was incredible and no one wanted it to end. But like all good things, it did.

Onward bound for our loaves and fishes lunch. One would assume that this lunch would consist of your basic fish and chips meal to symbolize Christ’s miracle, well I can well and truly say that we got much more than we bargained for. The pilgrims pile into this beachside building and it feels like we are crashing a wedding reception. Beautiful tables all with wine glasses napkins and entrees prepared. We are offered two choices for our main, fish or Chicken Schnitzel. I decide to go with the chicken only because I had eaten fish the day before. Thank God in heaven that I ate the Chicken. The fish came out with head, scales and tail all still attached. Steamed cooked. I’m assured by Amy Vierboom that the fish was delish. I still remain cynical about this fact.

After a filling meal, we made our way to our last structured activity, a Church known as The Primacy of Peter. Tradition holds that this is where the resurrected Christ asked St Peter, three times “Peter do you love me?” I found this one of the most confronting experiences. Visiting a Church and praying is one thing, but the Cardinal organized for two seminarians in the church to enact this scene out and we the pilgrims to individually respond to this question in our own words. At first I was very critical of this, and didn’t understand why we would do this. As I was nearing the altar I could see the seminarian Daniel McCaughan fondly known to many as seminarian Dan. It’s finally my turn, what do I say? How much do I love my Lord? I take a deep breath and focus on how my faith in God makes me feel, I look up at seminarian Dan and say, “I love you my Lord, with all my might and all my soul for all eternity.” What an experience! For the first time I have vocalized to the world just how I feel, and it has made me realize just how important my faith is and how important for us to actually proclaim this.

What a jam-packed day! We all get back to the hotel and now need some R and R, time to hit the beach (Sea of Galilee) at our hotel. Ah the life of a Pilgrim! I have had so many late nights and early rises that my body just automatically knows that it will need to catch up on sleep after this whole pilgrimage. Sleep really has become over rated to all of us, I think we would much rather stay in each others company than go to sleep, some even say that the most important time is that time that we spend with each other. So with that, I bid you all farewell, there is a very serious card game that I must get to. God Bless.  

Day 5 & 6 - Photos!

Day 3-4 Photos!

Day 3 & 4 Pilgrim Blogs - Last Days in Egypt, Africa!

By Pilgrim Jessica Nohra

Wow so here I am on the bus in Israel, driving past the Mountain of Sodom, reminding me of the sin of Sodom and Gomorra and Lots wife, who was so attached to Sodom that even when the Lord told her not to look back as they were fleeing the doomed city, she had a lack of trust in the Lord and after turning around was turned into salt! The couple of days have been crazy (to say the least).

Day 3 we were woken up super early to leave Cairo early. Ahead of us, an eight-hour drive! We were all a bit fed up from long travelling by now (since many of us were still suffering with jet lag), yet these eight hours were not so bad. We had a few stopovers before reaching our next destination, Sinai. On the bus we filled the time with some very loud singing, a little prayer, including morning prayer, spiritual reading as well as the rosary, and of course with Arabic music pumping from our bus some dancing in the bus.

One of the stopovers was Ayun Musa (the well of Moses) where Moses, by the power of God, brought forth water from the sand for the Hebrew people after parting the Red Sea. Also God provided manna and qualle for the people to eat. It is said that the number of Hebrews there was over 6000 people, and so standing in this holy place, I was trying to imagine all the different groups that would have been sitting down all around the sandy terrain. I thought to myself, from this sand God proved sweet food for his people; God provided for his people as he promised. The guide reminded us as we were standing there that the Hebrew people were to only take food for the day and no more; a test of their trust in God, yet many did not and so their food went bad. Standing there it came to my mind how much God provides in my life, not only through my family, friends, education but most importantly the Bread of Angels; the Holy Eucharist! And what a lack of love and trust I have in God – He gives me the ultimate food (His own Body and Blood) and much of the time I respond like the Ancient Hebrews, holding on to worldly things and not trusting in the providence of God.

We had a number of other stopovers on the way to Sinai and finally arrived in St Catherine’s city. At the monastery of St Catherine’s, which is a Greek Orthodox monastery, we visited St Catherine’s church briefly and then walking out of the church we touched and prayed at the well where Moses met Zahara his wife. Not so far away from this, we saw the Burning Bush! Wow! What an experience! So I had an image of what the bush looked like in my head from such movies as the ‘Prince of Egypt’, yet it was so much bigger and different to what I had thought. Nevertheless I knelt and thought about how God spoke to Moses through this book, calling him to be his witness. The story of how Moses was called yet was not confident because of his lack of speaking abilities, reminded me about how God calls us all in our lives, yet much of the time we feel it is to inconvenient or difficult to accept. Moses’ trust in the Lord can teach us a little about the Christian life!

We then walked to the St Catherine’s Library, which the likes of Blessed Pope John Paul II have visited before us. The art, manuscripts and icons in this museum were just amazing to say the least! One of the manuscripts that really moved me was a manuscript of all four Gospels from the 5^th Century, allowing me to reflect on the great history of the Church and the strength, precedence and power of the words of the Gospels to all people of God in all ages. On the hill where St Catherine’s was situated we caught spectacular views of the mountainous ranges of Mount Sinai. After a few group shots and some beautiful words spoken by the Cardinal we headed back down to our new hotel.

We learnt that since Day 4 included climbing up Mt Sinai for the sunrise we had to have kind of an early start… like 12am early! So after one and half hours’ sleep (if that) we all came into the lobby, absolutely exhausted but so pumped for the morning ahead. So at 1am on Sunday morning we all took up residence on the back of a camel (a strange thing to do early on a Sunday morning but nevertheless). The ride was uncomfortable at first yet after a while I got used to it, I just didn’t get used to the fear that suddenly would come over me as the camel would veer toward the edge of the path which led to the sharp rocks below! Luckily our Bedouin guides had it all under control. We got off the camels after an hour and a half and it was 750 large and inconsistent rocky steps till the top of the mountain left. Hmm so it seems to me that 750 steps in mind is not so bad but reality it is agonizing! I almost gave up yet had wonderful people around me, encouraging me and the rest of the group, who were struggling. Once at the top we could see the shadows of the mountains as the sun was peeping out, yet by the time sunrise came the view was simply magnificent… actually really there are no words to describe the experience. I truly felt the presence of God and was able to have a few beautiful moments in quiet prayer with the Artistic Creator, just as Elijah had experienced on the same mountain, and just as Moses had experience on this same mountain! It was on this spot where from an overflowing of His love, God gave to us the Ten Commandments, in order for us to know Him so intimately, to love Him so well and to imitate him most faithfully. After morning prayer, which was said as a group on the peak of Mt Sinai, we took off down back the treacherous stairs. I was loving the walk compared to walking up, in fact once I passed the rocks coming down it seemed like smooth sailing. Casually chatting with Luke (one of the pilgrims with us) I suddenly slip and fell twisting my ankle. Luke rushed over to me asking me if I was alright yet I knew from the pain that really I wasn’t. Providence has it that a doctor travelling with the YOOM group was coming down the mountain soon after my fall and so I was well taken care of my friend, a doctor as well as the Bedouins who fetched me a camel to go down on. My pilgrimage suddenly had taken a very different turn. I went to the hospital with a few Egyptian escorts from our tour guides and learnt to my dismay that I had a slight fracture of the ankle, and thus had to have it casted. So heading back to the hotel and sitting in the shade outdoors for most of the afternoon in a wheelchair I was able to do some good prayer about it all. It has really given me a new perspective on not only disabilities but the human dignity. Since I have lost much of my independence as I cannot put any weight on one of my legs, it has allowed me to learn how our human dignity is not about our looks, our abilities or our intelligence but is a God given dignity which is only cemented in the fact that we are creatures of God and made in His image and likeness.

So as I said before my journey has taken a change of direction, yet perhaps not for the worst. Sure there are probably things that I was so looking forward to do like climbing the mountain of Beatitudes and shopping for shoes in Madrid, yet I know God has something even better in stall for me, something hopefully, if I am prepared to listen and follow Him, will bring me closer to Him and be a form of sanctity for me.

Please pray for me, but most especially please pray for the amazing pilgrims that are on the journey with me. Their help and encouragement has really affirmed in me the fact that Christ works through the compassion and work of man.

You are in my thoughts and prayers on the rest of the journey!

God Bless,

Notre Dame Pilgrim, Jessica Nohra

Day 2 - Photos!