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| In mid-Lent 1998 a number of our parishioners went on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the intention of seeing many of the sites of the Old and New Testaments - particularly the places where Jesus preached, taught and healed. An illustrated report of the Pilgrimage can be read by clicking at the bottom of this page. In the meantime, here is what some of our people thought of the trip. "Just to be in the Holy Land is a moving experience that brings the Bible to life in a way no simple words or pictures ever could. But to actually stand in those places where our Lord stood, and look at sights that have changed little, if at all, since he looked at them is something very special indeed. To look from the Mount of Olives where he wept over Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley to the golden stones of the old city and the Temple Mount; to stand at the Mount of the Beatitudes and look across the Sea of Galilee to the hills beyond; to gaze across the Dead Sea to the mountains where Moses stood to see the land God had promised to his people, but which he was never to enter". |
| "For me some of the Holy sights were spoilt by the churches which mark the "probable" spots where various events are thought to have occurred, even though many of the buildings themselves are very beautiful. However, one I will forgive and that is the church on top of Mount Tabor - one of the probable sites of the Transfiguration. Why ?, because on the ceiling of a small chapel is the most magnificent picture of Moses, a strong man of God - it is stunningly believable". |
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 | "While it was not given to me to be deeply touched at all of the sites, I certainly was at some - at the Garden Tomb, by the path on which Jesus must certainly have walked, at the Shepherds' Field and on the Sea of Galilee in a storm I did feel "this is real" - I felt in touch. And when as a group, we sang "Be thou my Vision" in the lovely Church of St Anne at Bethesda, with its wonderful acoustics, it was a perfect moment set aside and apart". |
| "My first impressions of Jerusalem were of a noisy, bustling, rather dirty city. But there is another Jerusalem - the old walled city which we entered by the Damascus Gate. To me this was the real Jerusalem - a place hiving with people, with small narrow streets and alleyways, little shops selling jewellery, carpets, clothes, everything under the sun and oh, the smells -spices, herbs and everywhere the aroma of coffee". |  |
| "Amongst all this, little churches celebrating events in the life of Jesus and, going almost unnoticed, the Stations of the Cross. We visited churches of all kinds -some simple and quiet, some ornate and very elaborate but all with their own beauty and all built to God's glory". "There was the western wall where the Jewish people pray and their young boys have their coming of age ceremony. I put my hand on the wall which has, in every crack and crevice, little pieces of paper with prayers written on them and I felt, in a strange way connected to all those people who down the centuries had done the same thing". "I
remember walking up the Kidron Valley after a sandstorm, discovering Absalom's
Pillar, being on the Sea of Galilee, having Holy Communion beside the sea and
hearing the birds singing and the water lapping in the background as we listened
to the prayers and Bible readings making the places we visited so real". |
Click here to start on the Holy Land Pilgrimage
