“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all." Acts 10:34-36
We woke up at 6 am, got ready, packed our bags, had breakfast, and by 8 am we were on the bus on our way to Jaffa. Today we met our second tour guide, Ana’s fiancée. We are in his bus. His name is Shuki. He explained some of the history on our way to Jaffa. Jaffa is the old city with a history of 5,000 years. In the Old Testament, the name was Joppa. TelAviv is the new city. The name derives from “Old-New Country.” Tel means “artificial hill” and Aviv means “spring.” Tel is old and Aviv is new.
We got off in Jaffa and visited some old ruins. The port of Joppa is mentioned in Jonah 1:3, and that is why they have the whale of Jonah on a fountain.
We then headed to the church of St. Peter where Father Willie said a few words. This church is based on the scripture reading from Acts of the Apostles chapter 10, where Joppa is also mentioned. In this reading, Peter felt into a trance, and he sees a sheet falling from heaven with pictures of all types of animals. He then hears a voice telling him to kill and eat. Peter responds: “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean” (Acts 10:14). The voice replies: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 10:15). This is when Peter breaks from Judaism, and begins to do things differently. When Jesus resurrected, He broke all the boundaries. He is everywhere, and He came to save all humanity, not just the Jews. This is not our final home. We are on a pilgrimage towards our final home, which will be heaven. This dream that Peter had took place here in the location where the church was built.
Our next stop, Caesarea Maritima, was also Peter’s next stop after he had his dream. Up until this moment, the Jews did not associate themselves with the Gentiles. Peter’s dream changed everything. He realized that salvation was meant for everyone, not just the Jews.
Aside from the Bible connections, this town has a very interesting history. We began our visit by watching a movie that explained it all. The city itself was built by Herod the Great, who had a dream to build the largest city in Palestine during the Roman Empire. The city was built between 22 and 10 BC, and Herod dedicated it to his patron, Caesarea Augustus. It was destroyed and rebuilt many times throughout the years. Today, there are some original ruins. Pontius Pilate spent some time here and they have found a rock that proves it.
After watching the movie, we walked over to a sort of amphitheater known as a “vomitario” because it vomits people in and out. We continued reading Acts 10. Peter goes to Caesarea, to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. Cornelius was a gentile, so just visiting his home was not allowed for the Jews. A lot of gentiles gathered at Cornelius’ house, and Peter tells them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). Then, the Holy Spirit felt upon all who heard the word, both Jews and Gentiles. That’s what made Peter decide that baptism was not limited to the Jews. Who was he not to offer baptism to the gentiles when the Holy Spirit had decided otherwise? This brought about a series of questions. If they were baptized, did they also have to be circumcised? They created a council to discuss all these questions and they decided that Peter would have the final say since Jesus had named him first pope. In the end, it was decided that they did not need circumcision because they were breaking away from the old laws. Therefore, Caesarea marks the spot where the first Gentiles were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. It was a Gentile Pentecost.
Caesarea is also the place from where they shipped Peter to Rome to have him crucified, and Paul was detained in this town for two years (Acts 23-24). Caesarea Maritima was Rome away from Rome. There was no better place for Paul to get to know Rome while still in the Middle East. So the Lord kept him in this setting for two years and enhanced his understanding of the Roman world. Then, when the time was right, Paul set sail for Rome from Caesarea’s harbor.
After leaving Caesarea, we went to Haifa where we had lunch. It was a large restaurant, which is a good thing since our group of 73 pretty much occupied almost half the space. The only problem was that they did not get the memo that today is Good Friday, and we don’t eat meat on Good Friday. The main course was chicken shish kabobs. Father Willie gave us permission to eat it. He said that being that was what they were providing, it would be rude to reject it, and we would not go to hell for eating the chicken. Aside from the chicken, we had white rice, fries, hummus with pita bread, an assortment of salads, eggplant, baklava and coffee. It was all served family style, and we ate it as one community of faith. We will get to know each other pretty well over the next ten days, which is awesome, and definitely a part of the experience.
After lunch, we climbed Mount Carmel. At the top of the mountain, we found a church, the Stella Maris. Inside the church, there is an image of our Lady of Carmel in the altar and underneath, a cave, where the prophet Elijah hid when the king tried to kill him. The story can be found in 1 Kings 17-18. Years later, in the 12th century AD, a group of men decided to come to Mount Carmel, and live as hermits in the same cave where Elijah hid. While they were there, our Lady appeared to them and gave them a gift. She gave them the scapular, and the order of the carmelites was formed. She also made them a promise. If they were to die wearing the scapular, they would avoid purgatory and go straight to heaven. The reason why the church is called the Stella Maris is because when the monks looked out towards the ocean, they saw the North Star. The North Star has always been associated with our Blessed Mother. Just as the North Star guides the sailors safely to shore, our Blessed Mother guides us safely to Her Son.
At 3 pm, we knelt in front of the church for a moment of silence since it is believed that was the hour that our Savior died. And we are in the Holy Land, the place where He died, so we truly stopped to reflect at the exact time that He passed away.
We then walked over to an observatory with beautiful views. We took pictures, got back on the bus, and made our way to another observatory to take more beautiful pictures. The second observatory was even prettier than the first one. It overlooked beautiful gardens on the side of the mountain. We took more pictures and then headed towards our hotel in Tiberias where we will spend the next three nights. On our way to the hotel, we prayed the Stations of the Cross.
We got to the hotel, the Leonardo Plaza, at 5 pm and had to be back down at 5:30 for our Good Friday services. The hotel is packed because in addition to our Cuban invasion, today is Passover so it’s full of Jews that are here to celebrate the Passover. We decided to carry our own luggage up to the room or else, we would not have enough time to at the very least freshen up.
Father Willie and Father Frank both led us on the Veneration of the Cross. We are so blessed to have them both on this pilgrimage. Father Willie was the one who did the homily, and in his usual style, it was amazing. He said that Good Friday makes him think of marriage. He talked about the three rings of marriage: the first one is the engagement ring; the second one is the wedding ring; and the third one is the “suffe”ring. He said that when two people commit to each other in marriage, they are committing to suffering for each other. When we make the choice to love someone, we are making the choice to suffer for that person because love and suffering go hand in hand. We are going to suffer, it’s inevitable. It may be because one person gets sick, or because one lost their job, or because of the children. Whatever the reason, there will be suffering combined with the joy. He then tied this to Jesus and the cross. Jesus experienced physical suffering, emotional suffering and spiritual suffering. The physical is pretty obvious. The emotional is when He saw that His disciples had abandoned him, and also seeing His mother at the foot of the cross suffering from seeing Her Son on the cross naked, beaten, and humiliated. And the spiritual suffering was when He felt abandoned by God. He felt desolation when He tells His Father, “why have You abandoned me?” And Jesus went through all this suffering because He loved us so much that He chose to go through this perfect suffering. Perfect love and perfect suffering go hand in hand, and Jesus went through both because of us.
After the service, we had dinner, also buffet style. Once again, they had a lot of meat choices which most of us bypassed. We ate salad (there was a huge assortment), hummus, baba ganoush, salmon, potatoes, broccoli, other types of vegetables, and an incredible assortment of desserts. We also drank kosher wine. The best part, though, was witnessing first hand how the Jewish celebrate their Passover. Even though they tried to kick us out, we joined in the celebrations.
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