Our Three-in-one Holy Land Pilgrimage Tour: An Unforgettable Mountaintop Experience

Our three-in-one (Egypt-Israel-Jordan) Holy Land Pilgrimage Tour has been a very memorable experience for the 95 Filipinos who went into this tour together. We were on a traveling spiritual retreat and renewal which affirmed, deepened, and strengthened our biblical knowledge and faith. At the same time, it gave us cultural, social, historical, and gastronomical experiences that have enriched both our bodies and souls.

The pilgrimage tour was meant to be what it is – a pilgrimage into the different religious shrines in these three mentioned countries located in Africa and Middle East Asia. But it was also a tour into some popular archaeological remains like the pyramids of Giza in Egypt and the lost city of Petra in Jordan.

I decided to go into this trip after having been to Israel from January 15 to February 3, 2017 as an Israeli Mashav scholar for an 18-day training seminar on ICT in Education. I was on a one-year sabbatical leave from teaching in the University of the Philippines Cebu, so I was able to go on training seminars without worrying about any class I might miss. I courageously went to Israel by myself to participate in the training seminar, and during those very cold, winter days, I was able to set foot on the Holy Land, walked through the labyrinthine paths in the Old City of Jerusalem, pray while touching the Wailing Wall, and enjoy being a tourist for one day with my co-participants when our Mashav trainers treated as for a one-day tour with a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee and a tour of the churches around it. But since I was part of a training seminar, I failed to visit other important places in the Holy Land like the Mt. of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Dead Sea, and others, so when I saw the pilgrimage tour scheduled from July 12 – 24, 2018 on a leaflet In Golden JC Travel Agency, I paid the deposit for my husband and I to be able to join the pilgrimage tour.

There were moments when I asked myself if I made the right move, since I missed two training seminars scheduled on the days of the pilgrimage tour. But my husband said we should go since the deposit has been paid already, and so we went for the pilgrimage tour, and it is one that lifted us out of our usual daily routine and out of our usual environment. I did not make the wrong decision. The pilgrimage tour afforded us a spiritual renewal, an affirmation of our faith, a deep appreciation of the holy places significant to Jesus’ birth, ministry, passion, death, resurrection, ascension to heaven, and the Pentecost. The pilgrimage tour also brought us immeasurable cultural, educational, and social benefits like being able to meet fellow Filipino pilgrims who numbered 95 in all. Praying and singing the Our Father in Tagalog a number of times with fellow Filipinos in the Holy Land made me feel we are one united people in Christ, united in the Christian faith which we cherish and value as shown by our going en masse to the places significant to Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the apostles of Christ. We had to ride two buses every day to go to our places of destination.

Filipino pilgrims looking at Moses’ well.

The pilgrimage tour enabled us to meet and listen to an Egyptian Coptic Christian tour guide in Egypt named Joseph Moses and make friends with his assistant named Michael, also an Egyptian Coptic Christian. Joseph toured us to two Coptic churches: the Hanging Church which is perched on two massive columns, and the Cavern Church where we saw the cave where the Holy Family stayed when they fled from Herod who ordered Jewish boys 2 years and younger to be killed, for fear of another king to take his crown. We also saw the well from which the Holy Family drank when they stayed in the cave. Caves abound in the Middle East, I have observed. They afforded free lodging for humans who did not have any place to stay. We went to see Mt. Sinai and St. Catherine’s Monastery at night since we had a long travel through the desert of Shur to get to the place. Then we took a long trip through the Sinai Desert in order to cross the border between Egypt and Israel. There I wondered why God created deserts in these places where His revelations were given. Deserts are barren lands, parched, with only rare patches of greens. I realized that God speaks in the desert. It is in the bare mountains where we can hear God best because there is nothing else to distract our attention, that is why the early fathers of the Church were called desert fathers. They went to the desert to listen to God speak and commune with God.

In Israel, we checked in at Manger Square Hotel in Bethlehem. We were able to meet and listen to two Palestinian Arab Christians as our tour guides during our five days of pilgrimage in Israel. Their names were Taleb and Shukrie. Meeting them brought us close to the plight of the Palestinians who feel like they were imprisoned in their area by the Israeli government. For educators like my husband and I, meeting Palestinian Christians was very significant because we had a first-hand experience of meeting them and listening to them speak of their plight as Palestinians who have to secure a permit from the Israeli government to be able to work in Jerusalem and other places under the Israeli government, and who have to observe a curfew at 6 pm. I personally have sympathy for both the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs, so the situation is complex and demand a lot of prayers.

The mount of Temptation.

The pilgrimage tour enabled us to see the places and sites, now mostly marked by Orthodox and Catholic churches, that are significant as recorded in the four gospels, like the place of birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the house of Joseph where the Holy Family lived for years before the ministry of Jesus, the Mount of Temptation located in Jericho, Mt. Zion where Jerusalem is located, the Mount of Olives where Jesus agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane and where he was arrested by Caiaphas’s soldiers. We prayed the Via Dolorosa on the very sites where these happened in the Old City of Jerusalem, and these stations have markers or chapels venerated by Christians all over the world . I especially appreciate the fact that I was able to go to understand that the Mt. of Olives where Jesus agonized in the garden of Gethsemane and where he was arrested by Caiaphas’s soldiers was just across the Mt. of Zion where the old city of Jerusalem was located. In the Mt. of Olives, I especially remember the chapel named Dominus Flevit, which marks the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem, the city and its people which killed the prophets which will be destroyed with not one stone left, and how He longed to gather its people in his fold as a hen gathers its chicks under its wings. One can see through its altar the old city of Jerusalem. The heart of Jesus suffered over the unbelief of the Jewish people, and his weeping over Jerusalem and on what would befall it in 70 AD reveals His foreknowledge and omniscience.

We actually went up to four beautiful mountains in Israel, namely: Mt. Carmel, where the prophet Elijah challenged the 850 priests of Baal and defeated them with God’s holy fire consuming the sacrifice; Mt. Zion where the old city of Jerusalem lies, the place of Jesus’s passion up to His crucifixion on Mt. Calvary; Mt. of Olives, where the Lord underwent his agony in the garden of Gethsemane; and Mt. Tabor, where Jesus was transfigured in resplendent brightness and glory before His three apostles, Peter, John, and James, while Moses and Elijah appeared at His two sides. We learned that this happened just before Jesus’ Passion and Death so as to give His apostles a glimpse of His glory that is not of this world.

The river Jordan, baptism renewal site.

The Sea of Galilee, too, was breathtaking, beautiful, and blessed. We had a boat ride on it during which time Christian songs were played and we danced the Jewish community dance. The river Jordan was serene, unpolluted after more than 2,000 years. Each of us renewed our baptism and dipped our legs on its blessed waters. But then, our pilgrimage in Israel ended after five days and we then crossed the border to Jordan where we stayed for only two days. We had to go down the mountain to serve the Lord God in the world.

Jesus is no longer physically present with us. He walked on earth more than 2,000 years ago. But we can always read His words in the four gospels. My favorite words of Jesus are these: “Come to me, all ye who are weary and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus came to be our bread of life and our living water, and if we take Him into ourselves, we will no longer hunger nor thirst. The water that He gives will become in us like a spring flowing unto eternity. The water that He gives is His very own life and Holy Spirit.

Lastly, in Jordan, aside from seeing the wondrous lost city of Petra, we went to Mt. Nebo, where Moses had a view of the Promised Land before he died. We came back to the Philippines but our pilgrimage has not ended. We remain pilgrims on earth until we reach our true Home, the New Heaven and the New Earth, where there will be no more sin, no more night, no more tears, no more war, and no more death. Meanwhile, my heart and soul remains attached to the Holy Land and I recently bought and have started to read the book “The One Year Holy Land Moments Devotional” to keep me remembering the sacred places we visited in our unforgettable three-in-one Holy Land pilgrimage tour.