A Dominican Pilgrim, Part 1
May 26th, 2008 by Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This is the first in an occasional series of posts reporting the highlights from that trip.
After a (very) long day of travel nearly halfway around the globe, we arrived in Tel Aviv and drove by bus to our hotel on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. What beauty! This photo, taken just after dawn, only begins to capture the serenity of that place. Still largely undeveloped, this view looking across the Sea of Galilee must be largely the same as that seen so often by our Lord.
While sitting on the shore, reading the Gospels, and looking at this peaceful view, I was overwhelmed with a simple but profound realization. The Gospels do not tell a fairy tale. They do not just contain “stories.” No, they narrate a real history: Jesus of Nazareth was a real man; he lived at a definite point in history; he lived and taught and sailed and ate HERE.
This was the place he chose to live as an adult, and he must have been quite fond of its beauty. How often did he pause, perhaps with Peter, James, and John, to gaze at the rising sun across this very Sea? What were his thoughts when he looked at this scene for the last time, knowing that he was headed to Jerusalem to suffer and die? It is not ours to know such things. But we do know that he was here, and for a Christian, who measures all time from the central pole of history — the moment when God became man — this makes all the difference in the world.
