Well, I’m
going on another pilgrimage. This one has been just a couple of months in the
planning, and actually got a bit dicey there for a while, but last week I got
email confirmation with flight information and so forth, so it seems to have
come together. It’s coming up pretty quickly, in fact. Here’s how it developed.
First, for
several years now, ever since the 2014 pilgrimage to Italy, I’ve been thinking
about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. But I was pretty hesitant given the ever-present
turmoil in the Middle East. Nevertheless, when we were on the pilgrimage to
Mexico City in February 2016, over one of the meals that Anne and I shared with
a couple of women from Houston, conversation turned to their own pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. They strongly encouraged us to go. Later in the same trip, in
conversation with the organizer, Taylor Marshall, I found out he wanted to lead
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land – “Maybe next year.” I expressed my doubt I could
afford such a trip – I’d already looked into the cost and seen that they tend
to run at least $4000 per person – to which he replied, “Pray a novena!”
Anne and I
talked about it from time to time after that, but she was pretty firm in her
lack of a desire to go to the Middle East. She didn’t want me not to go, but just
really had no interest in doing so – or spending that kind of money to do so.
As it happened, “next
year” came and went with no announcement of Taylor leading a group to the Holy
Land – he did a couple of pilgrimages to Italy, but nothing regarding the Holy
Land.
2018
rolled in, and early in the year Taylor and I had one of our periodic exchanges
of messages on one subject or another, during one of which I asked what had
developed regarding his leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He said he was
hoping to lead one in 2019; I asked him to keep me in the loop; I was definitely
interested in going. And I really didn’t think anything more about it, except….
While
driving around my small town, I will often have the radio tuned to Radio Maria,
a Catholic network that has a station right here in Natchitoches. Around that same
time, I kept half-hearing a short ad for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the
National Director of Radio Maria, Fr. Emilio Garreaud. I really didn’t think
anything of it. The finances just weren’t really right, and I was set on
waiting and traveling with Taylor.
Then, Good
Friday (30 March), after the annual Walking Way of the Cross around downtown
Natchitoches, beginning and ending at my church, the Minor Basilica of the
Immaculate Conception, as we were retiring from the basilica itself into the
next-door parish hall for what one of our former priests dubbed “a light,
penitential lunch” of cheese, tuna, and PBJ finger-sandwiches, Anne stopped me
by the door and pointed out a poster:
Once the
intense schedule of the Easter Triduum was behind us, my thoughts turned back
to it and I started giving it some thought. I won’t bore you with the details,
but more research confirmed my “Wow” – that was a good price! I checked
out the pilgrimage company, and as far as I could tell, they seemed legit; I
called one of the contact numbers on the poster and found out that Fr. Emilio
had actually led a pilgrimage through this company before and had been pleased with
it. She sent me a brochure with a bit more specific information about this
particular trip.
And, yes,
I prayed a novena – of Rosaries, specifically to be guided in making the decision
whether or not to take this opportunity. I knew it would be just me – Anne
remained uninterested in going herself, but still encouraged me to go if I
wanted. Two things happened that I then took as being signs in answer to my
prayers. First, on the second day of the novena (I believe), my tax preparer
called with very good news. Although circumstances peculiar to tax-year 2017
had left me fearing I might end up having to pay taxes rather than get a
refund, it turns out I did indeed get a refund – just enough to cover this
pilgrimage. Anne was okay with me using the money for this purpose. Second, on
the last day of the novena, having had no further revelation, and still
being a bit hesitant, I asked for another sign. In this case, on that last day,
I had remained after morning Mass in the basilica and prayed the Rosary in front
of the side-altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Finishing up the Rosary, I
went out to my car, got in, and when the radio came on the first words I heard
were, I believe, “Our celebrant is going to be Fr. Emilio Garreaud, the
National Director of Radio Maria US.” He was just beginning to say Mass. I took
that as the sign I had asked for.
As an
aside, I also have to mention that the same day I called Radio Maria I had
found a post from Catholic evangelist Steve Ray just starting a nine-day
pilgrimage in the Holy Land that he would be video-blogging day-by-day. [LINK]
So I was able to follow pretty much the itinerary that was indicated for the
Radio Maria pilgrimage even as I was praying for guidance whether to go on it!
Later on
the day that I finished the novena, I called Nativity Pilgrimage and got the
ball rolling – letting them know to expect my registration in the mail within a
few days. I had other things I needed to do in preparation, as well. For one
thing, my passport expired late last year, so I jumped on getting it renewed.
The posted turnaround time is eight weeks, so I knew I couldn’t waste time. At
that point (mid April) we were about fourteen weeks out. Well, it turned out
that my new passport came much quicker than that – more like about four weeks.
I also
tried to drum up somebody that I knew to go with me, unfortunately to no avail.
Going without Anne continued to bother me – it still does, in fact. Without
going into a lot of detail, this will be by far the farthest we’ve ever been
apart, and I’m pretty sure it will be the longest. But that’s not what makes me
most hesitant. I am a heart patient – and my one cardiac event occurred right
after landing back in Houston after almost two weeks in the United Kingdom. A
heart attack landed me in the hospital for the next few days subsequent
to having two stents inserted into my Right Coronary Artery. That was eight
years ago, and so far – despite my doing less than I really should have to keep
myself in shape (and despite yearly ass-chewings by my cardiologist) – there’s
been no recurrence. But, especially every time I fly, that weighs heavily on my
mind.
But I
refuse to let that fear dictate my actions.
Anyway, I
was signed up, and going off by myself. Then….
Two weeks
ago, I got an email that threatened to kibosh the whole thing. I had been
wondering when we would get more definite information regarding our flights and
so forth, and actually considered calling Nativity Pilgrimage to see what was
up. But I didn’t want to be that guy. Turns out my feeling that a little
too much time was passing was correct.
The news
was that there was one less than the ten pilgrims signed up to go on the
pilgrimage, so they had missed the deadline to purchase the block of tickets.
They had therefore pushed out the pilgrimage two weeks and put out the call,
hoping to get one more person to sign up so they could meet a quickly-looming
second deadline.
Just ten
pilgrims? Whoa. I’m certain that the recent uptick in violence in the
Palestinian territories resulting from the United States’ long-overdue moving
of our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (it’s been planned for twenty years,
since the Clinton Administration, but no President before Trump would pull the
trigger, so to speak), as well as the US backing out of the bogus Iran Nuclear
Deal that Obama “negotiated” had something to do with it. It’s just a bit
“hotter” over there than usual right now. In fact, I paid attention to another
Steve Ray video-blogged pilgrimage in mid May just to see how much if any it
would be impacted – not a bit, as it turned out.
But that
wasn’t the biggest problem for me. Pushing the pilgrimage out two weeks put me
missing the whole first week of the fall semester!
I called
the lady at Radio Maria who had sent me the email and got all the information
she could give me, but let her know that this was a problem. I said I’d have to
get permission from the University to be out that week. Then I started thinking
about how I could swing it. To make a long story short, I figured out a way to
make it do-able and shot off an email to my department head, explaining the
situation. That was late in the evening, but first thing the next morning I had
a reply, basically that he didn’t see a problem since I had figured out a way
to cover the classes. (The fact that it’s the first week helps immensely.
Traditionally, the first day is going over the syllabus, and the second day I’m
going to cover by opening up the audio-visual materials that I normally use in
the online courses to my face-to-face courses.)
Even
though it turns out there was a little confusion over the revised dates of the
pilgrimage – and oddly enough it turns out there was some kind of
miscommunication regarding one of the other pilgrims such that it turns out
they were never down one at all, they just thought they were! – everything
worked out.
In fact,
for me, it worked out really well. Knowing (thinking) we needed just one
more – I contacted some friends who had seemed interested but had passed,
telling them they had a second chance. They didn’t take it, but I also reached
out to my wife’s sister-in-law. A month ago, when we were all together
attending my son’s graduation from college, I told the various in-laws about my
upcoming trip, and she said, “Aww, I’d like to do that!” My only hesitation in
reaching out to her at this time was that this is a Catholic pilgrimage – and
Kris is Baptist. But my wife and I agreed that would not be a problem; she’s
had Catholic in-laws for twenty-odd years at this point and it’s never been a
problem. So I called her and explained the situation, and sent her all the
information I had, and by the end of the week she’d decided she was coming
along.
So now I
do have a travelling companion – and she’s family, to boot! I know that makes
Anne feel better, too.
+ + +
Nativity
Pilgrimage evidently jumped right on finalizing the logistics as soon as the
requisite number of pilgrims were confirmed, because, as I said, the middle of
last week saw an email with much more specific information. I now know when we
are flying out of Houston, when we are returning, where we’ll be staying while
we’re in the Holy Land, and even the names of all the pilgrims.
Of course,
for privacy’s sake, I’m not divulging those names, except in context and only
by first name once the pilgrimage begins. Suffice it to say that we are a total
of twelve, including Fr. Emilio. But as to the other….
We depart
Houston on Monday, 13 August, at 21:05 via Turkish Airlines – pretty late on
“Day One” of this “Nine-Day Pilgrimage” (more on that later…). After scheduled
almost seventeen hours – including a little over two hours layover in Istanbul
during which time I bet I won’t be able to get the song, It’s Istanbul Not
Constantinople, out of my head – we land in Tel Aviv at 21:55 local time on
Tuesday, 14 August. So much for “Day Two”! While we’re there, we’ll be eight
hours ahead of time back home – a full third of the way around the
circumference of the Earth!
Coming
back, we depart Tel Aviv on Tuesday, 21 August, at 09:55, again via Turkish
Airlines, and again have a bit shorter layover in Istanbul (1 hr. 40 min.), but
a longer flight westward such that it will be a bit over seventeen hours later when we land back in Houston at 19:15 Central Time
– all at least on the same “Day Nine.” The jet lag is going to be brutal!
Of course,
that means that a full three days of this “Nine-Day Pilgrimage” are taken up
with travel. Only six days will be on the ground. But we will pack a lot into
those days.
Directly
from landing in Tel Aviv late on Tuesday, we will travel a couple of hours
north to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. Our lodging will be the Ron Beach
Hotel – the same one that hosts the aforementioned Steve Ray’s pilgrims.
During the
next couple of days we will see the Mount of Transfiguration, Cana, Nazareth,
Capernaum, the Mount of Beatitudes, visit the sites of the Multiplication of
Loaves and Fishes and the Post-Resurrection Confirmation of Peter’s Primacy,
and sail on the Sea of Galilee.
Then we
will travel back south – to our second lodging, in Bethlehem, therefore in the
Palestinian West Bank although it is only about five miles from Jerusalem.
There we will stay in the Saint Gabriel Hotel.
In the
next four days we will visit Shepherd’s Fields (I bet it’s not fields anymore!)
and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and make a short afternoon trip to
Ein Karem and the Church of the Visitation, before spending two days in
Jerusalem itself – the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper
Room of the Last Supper, walking the Via Dolorosa, attending Sunday Mass
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and paying respects at the Western Wall
(and I’m not mentioning everything) – before making a final day trip into the
Jordan River Valley to the site of Jesus’ own baptism, the excavations at Jericho, and
having the opportunity to take a float on the Dead Sea.
And then,
early the next morning we’ll have to be heading back to Tel Aviv, Turkish
Airlines, and home.
I expect
it’s going to be a trip of a lifetime!
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