A truly spiritual journey

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The Sarawak delegation with Fr David Ho. — Photos by Samuel Simon

WHEN my brother Lawrence called me up late last year, inviting me to join an organised pilgrimage to the Holy Land of Jerusalem (from March 3 to 13), my wife Josephine and I did not take long to accept.

Frankly, we did plan to visit the Holy Land but it was not this year.

I jokingly told my wife this was some sort of a calling, so we were very excited at the prospect of making the pilgrimage after hearing so much about Jerusalem, the place where the Bible comes alive.

According to Cohi Pintz, editor of a guidebook in Jerusalem, the Holy Land continues to be a symbol, a spirit of inspiration, a pilgrimage site and a sacred place to millions of Jews, Christians and Muslims despite of the complexities and difficulties that have plagued it.

For Christians, this is where Christianity has taken roots as it’s the place of Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, resurrection and sacrifice.

So on March 3 (Day One), our delegation, comprising 25 church members from Kuching, Sarikei, Sibu and Kapit Divisions, met at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) before leaving for Jordan at 10.20pm.

Our spiritual director was Rev Father David Ho of the Mary Immaculate Conception Church, Kapit.

After a 12-hour flight on Day Two (March 4), our delegation arrived at the Queen Alia Airport in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

We were immediately greeted by Mohammad, our friendly tour leader who brought us to a nearby hotel for a hearty breakfast after the formality at the airport. The weather was still chilly as it was the end of winter.

After breakfast, we headed directly to our first destination — Mount Nebo. Excitement was building up as it was the first time we would be seeing the holy places mentioned in the Bible.

Mount Nebo was where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land. As the weather was rather hazy, the view was not very clear.

After a prayer service, led by Fr David Ho, at a church, we continued our journey to Jerusalem, passing through the Jordan Valley and crossing the River Jordan via the Allenby Bridge before proceeding to the Israeli Terminal for a tight security check, followed by immigration and customs procedures.

Here, we changed to another bus which we were to use for the rest of the trip. This time, we were led by our tour guide, Rami, a 34-year-old Christian of Armenian descent. Usama, a Muslim in his 60s, was the driver.

We then headed to the historic city of Jericho before reaching the Mount of Temptation. This mountain, about 1,200 metres high, in the Judean Desert is where Jesus was tempted on a hill by the devil. It’s located some 11km from the West Bank of Jericho, the world’s oldest inhabited city.

Many other pilgrims and visitors were already there when we arrived, and being a desert area, it was quite hazy and dusty despite the chilly wind.

After spending about 30 minutes here, we went for lunch before continuing our journey to Jerusalem.

Rami assured we were “practically safe” in Israel. But due to the negative publicity, we took his assurance with a little apprehension.

However, over the coming days, we saw that the security was fine as evidenced by the large numbers of pilgrims and visitors from all corners of the world con-verging on this Christian Holy Land.

We arrived at our hotel — the Jerusalem Gate Hotel  at the western entrance to the Holy City — around 5pm After dinner, everyone retired a good night sleep.

Visit to Museum

Our group and other visitors viewing the scale model of the old Jerusalem at Israel Museum.

On Day Three (March 5), we visited the Israeli Museum. First, our guide brought us to see the big-scale model of the Old Jerusalem — as it was at the time of Jesus — before ushering us to the section where the Dead Sea Scroll is exhibited.

The Dead Sea Scroll was found by some Bedouins between 1946 and 1956 in a cave at Qumran near the Dead Sea, thus the name.

It’s a collection of 981 texts of great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the earliest known surviving manuscript of works later included in Hebrew Bible Canon along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in the late second temple of Judiasm.

Much as most of us would have liked to read the scroll, time was not on our side as we had to get ready for the drive to Bethlehem to visit the Church of Nativity. This is the site of the cave where Jesus was born in a manger.

We also called at the Shepherd’s Field where the Angels appeared to the Shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus.

Here, our group held a prayer service at one of the cave churches before going to a souvenir shop, manned by a Christian cooperative, and where all kinds of rosary beads, crosses, statues and things related to Christianity are sold.

Visit to Mount Olives

Entrance to the church where Jesus was imprisoned before he was crucified.

We started Day Four (March 6) with a visit to Mount Olives which commands a panoramic view of Jerusalem. We also stopped at the Paster Noster Shrine, built over a grotto where Jesus assembled his disciples and taught them the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1-4).

Next, we experienced walking down the Palm Sunday Road to visit nearby Dominus Felvit (the Lord Wept) where Jesus wept over the Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) as He foresaw the destruction of the temple. Another prayer service was held here.

We continued to Gethsemane where Jesus spent His final night. There are trees in the Garden whose the roots go back 2,000 years.

Our next stop was the Church of All Nations – so named because it receives contributions from many parts of the world. This is where Jesus prayed alone in the Garden on the night of His arrest. From here, Jesus was taken up the Kidron Valley to be interrogated and imprisoned at the House of the High Priest Caiaphas, now called the Church of Peter in Gallicantu.

Jesus was then condemned to death by Pontius Pilate at the Antonia Fortress and taken through the city to be crucified. Here, we had the opportunity to perform the Stations of The Cross, led by Fr David Ho.

This brought us to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where we saw Jesus’ tomb. Also known as the Basilica, it is where Jesus was crucified and has been a paramount and the most holy destination for many Christians.

According to our guide, each person is only given 10 seconds to see Jesus’ tomb if the crowd is big, but fortunately, on that day, he said our group was blessed as the other pilgrims and visitors were not around yet, so we could spend longer time at the place.

Our experience at the tomb site was surreal and some of us were overcome by emotion and cried. It was a spiritual experience most of us would never forget.

Old City of Jerusalem

On Day Five (March 7), we visited the Old City of Jerusalem and walked through the interesting and historical Jewish Quarter.

It was at the steps of the southern wall of the Temple Mount where Jesus was presented and found and where he healed a blind man.

Next, we visited the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple’s courtyard. The place has been a prayer and pilgrimage site for the Jews for centuries.

We also had time to visit the Dormition Abbey, Tomb of Mary and Peter Gallicanto, and went through the Holy Steps leading to the dungeon where Jesus was held in captivity.

From here, we went to St John Church for mass before heading to the Church of Visitation where Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John.

We started Day Six (March 8) with a 30-minute drive to Masada, near the Dead Sea. Along the way, we took the opportunity to recite the Rosary.

Masada is the place where King Herod built his fortress atop the mountain and this was the scene of the last stand by the zealots fighting the Romans.

After an almost 10-minute cable-car ride, we reached the summit and were impressed by the excavations and the setting that evoked a dramatic event of great symbolism to the Israelis.

We spent about an hour, marvelling at the ancient architectures of King Herod. After that, we went to another ancient site — the nearby equally stunning Qumran site where the Dead Sea Scroll was found among the caves.

We ended the day with a swim in the Dead Sea while the others preferred rubbing themselves with the Dead Sea mud, said to be good for skin, much to the amusement of the other visitors.

On Day Seven (March 9), our delegation checked out of Jerusalem Gate Hotel and proceeded to the ancient port town of Jaffa and passed by Tel Aviv, the third largest city in Israel.

It was more than 40 minutes drive to Jaffa because of heavy traffic – so we took the opportunity to recite the Divine of Mercy.

At Jaffa, we did some sightseeing, took photos and visited a few churches, then had lunch at the beautiful hilltop restaurant of Haifa, another enchanting seaside city, before moving north along the beautiful Mediterranean coast to Casearea, once a capital of the Roman province.

Here, we saw the remains of the Romans and Crusaders and the harbour from where St Paul was taken prisoner to Rome.

Then, we continued to Mt Carmel range to see the view from Stella Maris (Star of the Sea) where the biblical event — Elijah and the defeat of the Prophets of Ba’al — took place.

Mt Carmel is where a catholic religious order was founded in the 12th century and named the Carmelites.

Before our group left for the baptismal site at River Jordan where all of us renewed our baptism by Fr David Ho, we had a prayer service at one of the chapels in the Car-melite Monastery.

Visit to Nazareth

We started Day Eight (March 10) with a visit to Nazareth, the boyhood village of Jesus. It is now a bustling city.

At the Church of Annunciation where we also had our prayer service, we saw evidence of visitors from all around the world as reflected in the décor of the modern church building.

From here, we went to the Byzantine church at Cana, best known as the place where Jesus performed his miracle of turning large quantity of water into wine at a wedding feast (John 2:1-11).

This was where married couples in our delegation took the opportunity to informally renew their vows with Fr David Ho presiding.

Later, Rami brought us to a wine shop where we bought a few bottles of wine and some other souvenirs before proceeding to the Sea of Galilee where we had a 40-minute boat ride.

To our surprise, the operator hoisted our Malaysian Flag and played the National Anthem, so everybody stood up and sang the National Anthem.

Much of Jesus’ ministry occurred on the shores of Galilee. Matthew (4:18-22) and (Luke 5:1-11) describe how Jesus recruited four of his disciples from the shores of Lake Galilee — the fishermen Simon and his brother Andrew and the brothers John and James.

Here Jesus also performed His miracles, including walking on the water and calming the storm.

After lunch at St Peter’s Restaurant by the sea, we continued to the Mount of Beautitudes and Tabgha where Jesus fed the crowd of 5,000 people.

Nearby is a place known as Peter’s Primacy, where, after the Lord’s resurrection, He met with His disciples and told Peter to feed my lambs; look after my sheep (John 21:9).

After that, we went to Capernaum where Jesus began his Galilean ministry and taught at the synagogue and where the church was built over the site of Peter’s home.

Final day

On the final day (Day Nine — March 11), reality began sinking among us that finally we had to say goodbye (reluctantly) to the Holy Land.

We spent the day visiting Capernaum and St Mary’s Church and St Joseph’s Church before proceeding to Mt Tabor, the site of the Transfiguration of Jesus.

Driving up the mountaintop, our bus had to negotiate 99 bends, causing some of us to feel giddy. After lunch at Jericho, we crossed back to Allenby Bridge to get to Jordan and then Amman where our former guide, Mohammad, brought us on tour of the capital city as our flight was scheduled to depart for Kuala Lumpur only at 1.10am.

We landed safely at KLIA around 7pm on March 13.

According to Fr David Ho, the trip was spiritually enriching and he is glad our group was touched by the experience.

He said the trip was not a holiday but a pilgrimage.

“Praise the Lord, now is the time to come down from the mountain after experiencing transfiguration. In other words, the group had experienced the rich Mercy and Love of God,” he added.

Overall, the trip is an unforgettable spiritual experience for us — with over-powering emotion, excitement and adventure. It really strengthens our faith in Jesus.

As we marvel at the historic and archeological places we have seen and set foot on, we cannot help but feel Jesus is really alive in our hearts as we follow His trails in the Holy City.

Couples who renew their marriage vows with Father David Ho (front).