I

Again Faith Journeys has continued this year to draw a wonderful group of pilgrims to walk in the Way of Jesus in the Holy Land.

I am back in Canada to spend time with family and friends before beginning the pilgrimage routes in September.

Thanks to John Wall my website should soon be updated so you can be availed of the upcoming journeys up to March 2012.

Jan 31-Feb 12 Capuchin Pilgrimage with Bro Ignatius Feaver - Closed Registration

Again Sr Sophie and the babies of Bethlehem thank you for the huge donations of clothing, supplies and funds.

Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters there who continue to face hardships in the place of Our Saviour's Birth.

Appreciation to the many of you who are sponsoring the education of young children in Bethlehem. We visited the school with teachers during March Break and were very impressed with the school.

We were devastated by the tragic car accident which took the life of dear Jackie Lenhart in February. Jackie has journeyed with us to the Holy Land, to Turkey and had booked for Ireland in September. Our condolences to her husband Rick and all the family. In March her friend Joy placed a star for her on our tree in Bethlehem and a rock was placed in a desert in her memory.

Also pray for Rosa, Enzo's mother who died in March. She and Enzo had the opportunity to journey to the Holy Land together with the Calgary Group 3 years ago.

Advent 2010 Blessings to each of you as we again await and prepare for the Coming Christ in Advent.

This year we again had some wonderful journeys in Faith to the Holy Land; a very important journey as the foundational place of pilgrimage. It was especially a blessing to bring two groups of Catholic educators – Simcoe Catholic D.S.B. in March and the O.F. CTA Part 2 summer course in July. Assuredly the richness of these experiences has enriched the classrooms, staffrooms and our communities within Catholic education.

The two Oberammergau pilgrimages in September enabled almost a hundred of us to witness the Spirit working in a small village in Germany as they continue a 400 year tradition of Gospel ministry. The experience at this particularly challenging time in our history can certainly ignite us into continued action to proclaim the Truth of the Gospel in our own day. We were left with so much to reflect upon and of course act on.

I have just returned from a parish pilgrimage to the Holyland and, as always, witness the necessity of your prayers for peace with justice in this Land of Our Redemption. Again we brought supplies: clothing and finances for the babies in Bethlehem, as well as some sponsorships for the education of some underprivileged elementary school children in one of the Catholic schools in Shepherd’s Field (Beit Sahour).

Another wonderful journey this May was to Turkey in the Way of St Paul and the early Christians. Our relationship with the Franciscans there always offers us some very unique and special experiences, so our plan is “Same time, same place,” next year.

Rest in Peace Since my last communication a fellow pilgrim has died and a star placed for her in Bethlehem, a stone in the Judean Desert.

Please pray for Yvonne Power. Yvonne has journeyed with us many times, as recently as Oberammergau, and she is now recovering from some serious surgeries.

Also pray for Olive Isaacs who was with us in Turkey this year, and who has just completed many months of treatment.

Your prayers are also requested for Cathy Astolfo who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Many know Cathy and Vince, who have been an integral part of Faith Journeys for over a decade. They are special to us all.

Sue Walsh, the angel of our Futures for Children, outreach to the babies of Bethlehem, is now completing her cancer treatment after months of struggle. Let’s pray that she returns now to fullness of life!

Anyone wishing to make a donation towards the babies of Bethlehem please make cheques to “Futures For Children” and send to me,

This has been a difficult year because of chronic lack of water so every small amount is much appreciated. Tax receipts will of course be forwarded to you, thanks to the work of Eamonn Dorgan.

I have just returned from a summer pilgrimage for Catholic teachers in the Holyland and am encouraged and confident in the future of Catholic education and indeed our Church in witnessing their commitment to the Gospel. This is Good news at a time in our Church when we have much to be concerned about .

In May we also had a wonderful experience in Turkey, following the Journeys of St Paul and the early Christians - it was a wonderful group, a fantastic country with so much variety of terrain, and excellent air carrier with Turkish Air( which now flys directly from Toronto to Istanbul. We were, as usual, filled with gratitude for the hospitality we received and for the special Faith Journey privileges granted because of our close relationships with the Franciscans there. If you haven't done this journey do consider coming in May 2011!

The wall around Bethlehem and consequent hardships for the people there is still a source of pain for all of us but we live in hope inspired by Gabriella, Edward Tabash, Sr Sophie and all our friends there who welcome us" home "without bitterness or discouragement. They know that Jesus, born there, has a special care for them and that one day the wall will come down. One day they will move freely to pray in the Holy sites of Jerusalem. One day the babies in the orphanage will play on the beaches of Telaviv and see the Sea of Galilee where Jesus, their God and ours taught, preached, and healed. We must believe as they do, that despite their present hardships they know (to quote Gabriella ) that, "Jesus of Bethlehem only brings good news . He came for us -the poor ,the imprisoned ,the oppressed We must not be sad .We must not give up Hope"

All five groups who have journeyed with me to the Holyland this year have visited the orphanage with gifts of clothing, toys, sweets, medical supplies and generous financial donations. Our contribution is upwards of a quarter of a million dollars and that has saved the lives of many of these children. Sr Sophie has been able to hire more help(which also helps employ a few in a town with little work.)She has been able to send a few to Jerusalem to get medical treatment unavailable in Bethlehem. Mostly, we are enabling her the opportunity to provide for these abandoned babies a warm, loving environment. However sad the prospects for their future , and even knowing they will never know family life as we do, these children have been saved from death and they are cared for by this wonderful woman and her community of workers. There can be no substitute for that!

Sr Sophie did tell us last week that at the moment they have a "situation Tragique"-lack of water. They have been without water for over 20 days and it is becoming a humanitarian travesty. The washrooms at Shepherds Field were closed, for example, for lack of water and more and more this is becoming a problem so please pray that Israel will remove its restriction on drilling at least till there is a chance of rain in the Fall. After all Palestine is supposed to be its own authority!!!!

During our pilgrimage with the teachers last week Gideon, our Israeli guide, had news of his mothers death. She had been sick for a few years, was 94, and he always said she stayed alive so long because of our Catholic healing prayers, the last of which was on the Sea of Galilee 2 days before she died! Many of us in earlier days met her. As you can imagine she, Hannah, was a strong, elegant and eloquent lady. She came to Palestine from Vienna at the age of 18 and married Gideons dad, a farmer then struggling to make ends meet. She never quite got Vienna city life out of her dreams but lived the rest of her life in Israel, raising a fine family mainly on her own as her husband was killed by a bull early in life .

WE OFFER OUR CONDOLENSCES AND PRAYERS TO THE FAMILY OF EACH AND HOPE THAT THEIR EXPERIENCE IN THE HOLYLAND ENRICHED THEIR LIVING AND BROUGHT COMFORT IN THEIR ENTRY TO THE NEW ,HEAVENLY JERUSALEM.

For anyone wishing to make a donation to Sister Sophie and the Holy Family Orphanage in Bethlehem, cheques are payable to "Futures for Children " and can be sent to me while Sue Walsh is undergoing cancer treatment Please pray for Sue and her family at this difficult time .

Appreciation, as always, to Eamon Dorgan for handling the Futures For Children accounting and to Peter Tate for looking after the sponsorship program for the Latin Patriarchate school in Shepherds Field (Beit Sahour).

Congratulations to Bernice Brandt on her retirement from TCDSB. Bernice always embodied a gospel style of leadership and I am sad to see her leave her supervisory officer position.

Much of the media focus on the recent papal visit to the Holy Land was an evaluation of the pontiff’s relationships with Muslims and Jews. However, in the land of Christianity’s foundation, Christian church members wanted only to know that they are not forgotten, not alone and that their story of struggle is known by their spiritual leader.

They dreamed in hope that the visit would result in some good news for them.

Nine members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Toronto joined me on a 12-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land that was extended to include the papal visit. We were part of the papal entourage of the Latin Patriarchate and, consequently, had VIP status with close, privileged participation in all the religious events.

What astounded the nine who had already experienced the sacred sites in the biblical and sacramental journey through Nazareth, Bethlehem, Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem was the radical change in environment after the arrival of the Holy Father. All roads were blocked, the Old City was out of bounds without special permits, stores were shut down and 23,000 police and soldiers filled Jerusalem.

At the Mass in Gethsemane, Israeli forces almost outnumbered the congregation. Many local Christians were turned away without tickets and others opted out because of the roadblocks and the long by-foot routes. It was mainly the able-bodied tourists and dignitaries who had access. Having been present for the visit of Pope John Paul II in 2000 this was a very different reality.

The visit of the Holy Father to the West Bank was even more revealing. Having brought over 40 groups in the past four years to Bethlehem, I was aware of the excessive security checks and procedures to enter the city. This time, however, only two minutes drive from the regular Bethlehem entrance through the heavily guarded gate at the security wall, we were re-routed a 20-minute drive down the Hebron Road, one generally accessed only by the military.

Without having to view the wall (referred to by Israel as a security fence) we entered Manger Square, the location of the Mass. All surrounding shops were closed. Peddlers who only recently were given some hopeful prospects with the increase in tourism were gone from the streets. In fact, this was a day of lost business rather than a boost, as they expected. To quote a leading Israeli newspaper, HaAretz: “Most of the people were tourists, journalists and Palestinian security forces working in co-ordination with Israeli forces.”

Yet, true to the Gospel reality that large numbers and high positions are not what counts, I believe the people of Bethlehem saw some glimmer of hope from their spiritual leader. To quote Gabriella, a Palestinian guide restricted for eight years to Bethlehem: “We do not focus on the wall or the negatives. We know Jesus came for us — the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned. God will always be with us to protect us, and we have hope that the Holy Father will hear us.”

And that is the message the Holy Father did give to the Christians of Palestine — at each Mass and each gathering, his support was stronger. He responded to a courageous introduction by His Beatitude Fouad Twal by acknowledging the many difficulties facing the diminishing Christian communities here, speaking of their imprisonment and their imposed poverties.

Yet, it was in Bethlehem, the “little” town of “greatness,” that the Holy Father told the people what they needed to hear. He assured them he knew their story, that he had come to stand with them in their pain and suffering. He offered particular concern for the people of Gaza, amid much applause. He met afterwards with the small contingent from Gaza who had a day pass to be present. The Holy Father also welcomed one-day pilgrims from the nearby West Bank city of Ramallah.

But it was the visit to the Al Aida refugee camp that made the most impact. Despite a huge military presence, the wall could not be hidden this time and the Holy Father spoke out against it. Calling the structure “a symbol of stalemate” he prayed for it to come down — and soon.

So, was this Pope’s visit good news for the poor? It is interesting that the Gospel readings at the sites of the public Masses were stories of the lowly being raised up — Mary in Nazareth, the Shepherds in Bethlehem, and Mary of Magdala being the first witness of the Resurrection. But only time will tell the effectiveness of the visit of Pope Benedict.

We must continue to pray with him that our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land “will at last enjoy the peace, freedom and stability that has eluded you for so long.” We pray too that this visit of the Holy Father will shed new light on the reality of life for Christians in Israel and Palestine. Lest we forget!

(McGilly operates Faith Journeys , a Toronto company specializing in biblical and sacramental pilgrimages to the Holy Land.)