A Lenten Reflection of a Holyland Pilgrim

A Glorious Post-Easter Greeting to all our Travel Talk readers. Please accept my apologies for my 2 weeks' absence. The workload in preparation for our May departure schedules for our Footsteps of Jesus Holyland Pilgrimage and our Best of Europe-Ave Maria Pilgrimage took its toll on this writer. Even my plan to join our Visita Iglesia to the seven (7) Churches south of Cebu had to be cancelled in exchange for a good bed rest due to cough and colds. I was prepared for an uneventful weekend, but as it turned out, what was to be the glummiest Holy Week in my life turned out to be the best ever! My time spent at home, was not wasted, since it gave me all the time to reflect on how much God loved me. So much, that He sent us His only Son, Jesus, to be born of a humble maiden from Nazareth, to live and preach the gospel of love and forgiveness among his people, fully aware that He was to suffer and die for our transgressions, so that we might be saved. How blest I am for everything that has happened in my life and how grateful I am to God for providing me with a wonderful and meaningful life with my family. My visits to the Holyland and other Marian Shrines for the past 28 years have given me a fuller grasp and a clearer understanding of myCatholic faith and how I should live my life in accordance to His will. I thanked God for guiding me and my spouse to join a Catholic Charismatic Community, the Bukas Loob Sa Diyos, which has guided me in my walk with the Lord and for the development of my deep and personal relationship with Him. I am now more aware of Gods work in my life, as well as more alert of the presence of the evil one, who takes every opportunity to destroy everything that I hope to achieve as a covenanted member of the community. My knowledge and understanding of the scriptures gave me the wisdom to direct my life and that of my family to what is pleasing in God's eyes. This Holy Week provided me with time. A time spent only for Him and with Him. I was fortunate to have had enough visual aids which kept me and my family fully occupied. Our TV channels were limited only to the viewing of religious films. We started the week with a movie "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS". In this movie, we saw how Moses, son of a Hebrew slave, was picked up from a floating basket in the Nile River by the sister of the Pharoah. She declared him to Pharaoh as her own son. My thoughts brought me to Egypt which I just recently visited with a group of pilgrims after we visited the Holyland. During our tour of the pyramids and Sphinx, our coptic guide, in her explanation about how the Egyptian cities were built, denied that the Egytians enslaved the Jews and made them work as slaves to build the city of the Pharoah. She claimed that this is not true since the Christians came to Egypt several centuries after the death of the Pharoah.

In her tour guiding she claimed, and that it was the Egyptians themselves who worked hard to build the city of Pharaoh. I listened to her explanation intently, and came to the conclusion that she did not have any knowledge of the fact that before Christianity came about, the Jewish people believed in the words of prophets who foretold that GOD would save His people from bondage by sending them a "deliverer" who will set them free. This "deIiverer" was Moses and I realized that our guide could not have known about Moses and what he did, since the Pharoah ordered that the name of Moses be stricken from every column and obelisk and never to be spoken again in the whole of Egypt. Thanks to the Bible, we have a way of knowing the the truth. Today, the name of Moses remains in the hearts and minds of the people throughout the world. Our coptic guide who was highly trained could not find any record of these events in any of their archives. I listened to her intently, without questioning her beliefs, but my knowledge of the scriptures made me understand why. On Good Friday, I watched "The Passion of the Christ" with our two adopted boys Jayson and Jimboy, ages 16 and 13. I did my best to explain the parts that I thought may confuse them to make sure that they benefited from the movie. Thanks to CCTN Channel, I was able to participate in the SEVEN LAST WORDS OF JESUS and the lenten ceremonies of the WASHING OF THE FEET aside from watching the different versions of the life of Jesus. As I watched the different movies on the life of Christ, I realized how television can affirm or destroy a person's faith, if his belief in his God is not firmly rooted in the Holy Bible. This is when I realized how important it was for me to know the scriptures so that I can properly discern what is of God and what is not. The other channels tried to show the Davinci Code and the Gospel of Judas, but it did not even interest me. Instead, I focused my time reflecting on the life of Jesus and started relating them to my experiences in the Holyland. As I watched the scenes from Nazareth, I could not help but recall an incident that happened to us in the Church of the Anunciation which was our first stop in the Holyland. Our group was very happy when our guide told us that the church will be kept open for us (it closes at 5:30pm) even if we came a bit late.

The last group of pilgrims were coming out of the Church when we arrived. As we entered the Church, we heard some beautiful singing coming from the 2nd floor of the Church celebrating the start of the Lenten Season . We were immediately led to the cave, which was to be the sight where the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to be with child. I situated myself outside the grotto, to make room for the pilgrims who were visiting there for the first time. As we started to pray, a deranged family of three ( we heard it on TV in the late night news) exploded for about 5 minutes firecrackers at the side entrance of the church directly behind the grotto, which naturally terrified most of us. Although I did not see this family, I saw that they were trying to hurl these firecrackers inside the Church. They were prevented from doing so, by some priest and some workers of the church who met them with wooden chairs in hand, throwing it at them to keep them from entering the premises of the church. I knew right then and there that it was not anything that the church people could not contain. Thank God that I am very familiar with the sound of firecrackers or it would have scared me. We were led out of a side gate by a priest and we watched the police take over the scene. As we reflected more on the events of that day, our group concluded that our presence in the grotto saved it from being desecrated by those three crazy people.

A husband and wife, with their daughter, whose children we learned on TV, had been taken away from the mother, since they had a history of mental illness. In hindsight, we were grateful that it happened since the experience brought our group closer almost instantaneously. It also showed how much faith we had and how confident we were that God and Mama Mary would protect us. No amount of prodding to come out of the grotto, could make the group leave the place. We continued to pray for protection, with some of us managing to take pictures and video tape of what was taking place. The experience did not dampen our spirit as we continued with our pilgrimage, enjoying our visit from the Church of the Anunciation up to Calvary and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where we carried the cross along the Via Dolorosa. Would I return to the Holyland after this incident? Of course! I will continue going back for as long as God will allow me. He is my protector and guide and I will put my complete trust in Him.

If my group would be in danger, I know that He will not allow us to be there. If our group does not materialize for any reason, know that God has a hand in it! He never fails! He loves us and if we pray for guidance and protection, He will listen to our prayers and answer them. This is how much I trust my God! To Him be all glory and praise! For your comments, you can contact me at Delmar Travel & Tours, Inc., Tel. Nos. 2536561 & 2536571 or by email at: [email protected].