This morning we set out on the next stage of our pilgrimage, much like Jesus did, and travelled south from Galilee to the city of Jerusalem.
As we drove out of Galilee, Fr John led the group in a reflection, not on the places where Jesus taught, but on what he taught: the mercy of God. He went on to say: ‘as we have been gifted with faith in Jesus, let us be men and women of mercy and compassion.’
At the end of Mark chapter one, Jesus spent the day in Capernaum where he had met a leper. The leper said to Jesus, ‘if you want to, you can heal me’, and Jesus reached out, touched the leper, and healed him. As a leper, he was considered to be as good as dead. He would have left his family, his village and his occupation. He was nothing. Fr John pointed out that Jesus had not just given this man physical healing from his condition, but had restored his dignity and value. In the coming Year of Mercy, we should remember that this is the true meaning of mercy: to restore dignity, rather than to spread kindness in unmeaning abundance.
Continuing on this theme, Fr John reminded us of other stories of healing: the woman bent double with arthritis in the synagogue and the healing of blind Bartimaeus. These people were restored by Christ. Their healing gave them an appreciation for their health. They took nothing for granted, and everything as a gift from God. We, too, must remember that everything is a gift from God. This compassion calls us to break down the hardness of our hearts, and to embrace the Good News which Jesus taught of the mercy and power of God.
As we headed towards Jericho, we stopped at the River Jordan at a point similar to where John would have baptised Jesus. Visiting the site gave us a clearer idea of what it would have been like for those who came to be baptised, a far cry from the baptismal fonts in our churches at home.
Here Bishop Nicholas led the group in the renewal of their baptismal promises. Fr John explained that through baptism we come to ‘live in Christ’. We leave behind our former life and its logic to become completely, and freely human. We receive the grace of God through our baptism and are pull upwards towards Christ and Heaven. This does not mean that we are free of earthly temptations, but we are able to be forgiven of these through the sacrament of confession, and to continue to seek to be like Christ.
The landscape around us changed from the lush greenery of Galilee, to the barren desert which surrounded us by the time we arrived at Jericho for lunch. Moving on towards Jerusalem, we wound our way through the desert and came to Wadi El Kelt valley, the valley of the shadow of death, which appears in Psalm 23, where we celebrated Mass overlooking the valley and surrounding desert.
In his homily at Mass, Fr John reflected on the psalm 23, the psalm of the Good Shepherd. Reminding us that the landscape and terrain before us was what Jesus had lived in, he explained that the role of a shepherd in this environment is vastly different to the role of a shepherd in Britain. In this environment, the sheep are completely dependent on their shepherd for food and water and they will not follow a stranger, only the voice of their master. They trust their shepherd completely, and follow him out of need.
When a sheep is isolated from the flock, it becomes paralysed with fear and cannot move to search for its lost shepherd. Therefore, the shepherd must go out and search for the lost sheep, and carry it back to the flock over his shoulders. This is the sort of relationship that Jesus was imagining when he spoke of the Good Shepherd. It is this level of trust that we must place in him, particularly in those desert times that we experience ourselves.
In the afternoon we arrived in the Old City of Jerusalem where we will spend the next few days. Some of the group joined Fr Paul, the pilgrimage director, in a short walk through the city to the Holy Sepulchre. The group was able to enter the tomb of Jesus, and reverence the stones of Golgotha on Friday, the day that Christ died for us.
To view photos from today, click here.
