One Pilgrim's Experience

“Be pilgrims of hope and builders of peace”

Pope Francis  

Video I made at sunset 19/1/25 looking from the walls of Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley to the Mt. of Olives

Now that I've been, I plan to return to the Holy Land as often as I can. The experience renewed my faith in several ways - through the journey itself, the places I visited and especially through the people I met. I'd like to encourage others to experience it too. I travelled alone, in a time of war and encountered no problems. In fact, from landing in Ben Gurion until I returned a week later, I was met with courtesy, patience and a warm welcome. My room at the Ecce Homo Pilgrim House in the heart of the old city cost £70 per night with breakfast.

View from the terrace outside my room in the Ecce Homo Basilica and Pilgrim House

My time there was was far too short, but it was still long enough to effect me deeply. Of all places, it seems uniquely difficult to describe. The sites were intimately familiar - had been part of my consciousness since infancy - and yet they were also new, different, and shockingly real. 

Gethsemane looking toward the Golden Gate on the morning of 18/1/2025

I can’t describe how it was to walk down from the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem at sunset and see the city bathed in rose-tinted gold. And I can't explain what it was like to pray alone among the olive trees of Gethsemane until night fell, then cross the Kidron valley to Lion's Gate by moonlight. 

Depiction of the Garden as per Mark 14:32-37 (c/o unashamedofjesus.org)

If I had more writing ability, maybe I could describe the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - how the fervour and variety of two thousand years of Christianity is crammed into one space. But nothing can  describe what it was like to kneel in the place where Christ rose from the dead, and know that with Him, all creation is risen, too!

​These are things you can only experience for yourself!

Church of the Holy Sepulchre and aedicule - structure housing the tomb of Christ

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