Today was Sunday and most of our pilgrims had a lie in. Then we made our way to join in the worship at Saint Georges Cathedral. We were privileged to join a festival Eucharist service to celebrate the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Saint Georges College in Jerusalem. The preacher was the Rt Rev... Continue Reading →

This morning began with a visit to the "School of Joy", (www.schoolofjoy.org ) a School for children of primary school age with special needs. This school looks after 70 children and is supported by the Friends of the Holy Land Organisation. We greatly enjoyed hearing about it and were glad to offer our support by... Continue Reading →

We have had another wonderful day here in the Holy Land. This morning we visited Saint Vincent's orphanage where we held service of Holy Communion Before hearing from one of the sisters who helps to look after the children. We then had a joyful and uplifting half an hour spent visiting and seeing the children,... Continue Reading →

This afternoon we visited the site of the baptism of Jesus where we were able to renew our baptism vows and (as you can see from the photo) some of us chose to get wet. Because the level of the river was so high, we weren't allowed nearer, but we could chose to stand under... Continue Reading →

This morning began at the lakeside again as we shared the story of the disciples encounter with the risen Jesus and the restoration of Peter after his denial. We wondered and pondered on the fact that Jesus accepts even our weak expressions of love and still commissions us. We moved on to Capernaum the town... Continue Reading →

Yesterday after we left the church of the multiplication we drove north to Banias Nature Reserve the site of Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus asked his disciples 'who do you say that I am?' We saw the spectacular Banias waterfall in full flow due to all the recent rain. But we were blessed by blue skies.... Continue Reading →

After a long but smooth journey, we arrived around 6.30pm in the Pilgerhaus, our hotel/retreat centre on the shores of Lake Galilee. Grateful but very tired after such a long journey, it was wonderful to be welcomed into beautiful rooms and to a delicious supper. Our first day was spent in Nazareth and in the... Continue Reading →

  Tomorrow I'll be returning to the Holy Land. I last went two years ago on a tour for people who might lead a pilgrimage. So it's very exciting to be going back again, this time with 44 other people from Coventry Diocese, many of whom have never been before. I'm sure there are as... Continue Reading →

Okay so this blog post will go some way to make up for the previous one! This year for Advent in church I constructed an advent calendar with just four windows: one for each Sunday of Advent. The front of the calendar was plain black - deliberately so. I wanted it to look as unadorned and... Continue Reading →