Tend my sheep
It's my third night here on the beautiful western shore of the Sea of Galilee, and this is the first time I've had to wear my coat outside. There's just the tiniest hint of chill in the air, but it's more than worth it to take my laptop down to the edge of the water and write. The light breeze from the last two nights has disappeared, and the sea is as still as a millpond - virtually glass. The only sounds I can hear now are those of large birds cawing in the distance as they ply their way across the nighttime waters. I'm also struck by how much closer the other side of the lake appears at night, with its glimmering lights shining across the darkness. During the day, the eastern shore appears hazy and distant even when everything else is clear and sharp. The other fascinating thing about this lake is what the beach is composed of. What at first sight appears to be fine gravel is in fact millions of tiny seashells. Every single "pebble" is an ornately shaped exoskeleton. These miniscule shells don't just cover the beach - they comprise the beach. I've never seen anything like it before.
The last two days have been a potpourri of visits to ancient ruins and towns, all of whose names I've read countless times in the Scriptures. Ever since we left Bethlehem, every day more and more of the Bible has been coming alive for me, if only because I now have an internal idea of how everything is situated geographically. I've especially been struck by how many places we've seen that are mentioned anecdotally in the Psalms, but which I only just now understand. The Liturgy of the Hours covers all of the Psalms over the course of a month, and so over the last eight years I've become very familiar with the Psalms - but not until now have I understood references to Edom, Moab, the fierce bulls of Bashan, the dew on Mt. Hermon, or anything that stretches from Dan to Beersheba. The other interesting thing is that every place I've seen in the last few days is where Jesus spent the bulk of his ministry, so virtually every town and structure has had some kind of connection to what he did and said. Everywhere that I've walked, I've been keenly aware that Jesus may very well have walked on this same ground during his extensive travels by foot.
Yesterday, of course, was the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. This signals the end of the Christmas Season. It really is too bad that we couldn't have been at the Jordan River itself on that day - logistically, it works out better that we'll be going there in another two weeks or so. Instead, it was the first time on this pilgrimage that we privately celebrated a Sunday Mass. In this case, we had it in an ecumenical "meditation room", which like all such things is as starkly decorated as it can possibly be. (Pilgerhaus is also the first and only place at which we're staying on this pilgrimage that has no actual chapel with the Blessed Sacrament present. My prayer time has been spent out here on the shore of the Sea of Galilee instead.)
After Mass, our first stop was the ruins of Chorazin, which was just a little bit north of here. Unlike the other places we'd seen, this town hadn't been destroyed by the invading Persians, but had instead been leveled by an earthquake in the 8th century. For that reason, the ruins were in fairly good shape, with virtually all of the pillars and walls still standing. When nature destroys a town, it does so in a much neater and cleaner way than when people do it. Chorazin was only mentioned once in the New Testament, and that was when Jesus rebuked it: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes." One can conclude from this that Jesus had been working miracles in Chorazin, but nobody there had believed him or had changed their sinful lifestyles. Indeed, the ruins of the synagogue showed that it had incorporated the elements of many pagan cults into its construction, so that would seem to back up what Jesus said about it.
After Chorazin we drove past the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, then eastward to the ruins of the ancient town of Hazor. Hazor is mentioned a few times in the Old Testament - primarily, it was one of the kingdoms that Joshua and the Israelites had to destroy as part of their conquest of Canaan, about 3500 years ago. When they came sweeping into this region, the book of Joshua describes several Canaanite kingdoms banding together under the leadership of Hazor in an attempt to drive the Israelites away. They failed, of course. But when you consider that each Canaanite kingdom was really more of a fiefdom - just a single fortified town, really - it's impressive that the king of Hazor was able to get everyone to fight together in that way. Hazor was situated on a plateau, and from where we stood we could look around and take in a vast array of plains and mountains in every direction. One could imagine Hazor being a central stronghold among the Canaanite kingdoms that were all doomed to fall when the Israelites showed up. About the only interesting thing about the ruins themselves was a very deep cistern, which conveniently had a series of staircases leading us all the way to the bottom. Only the more agile sportsmen went down all the way, and when we got there, we were greeted by a very underwhelming pool of stagnant water. I was the last to leave the cistern - I waited until all of the other guys were near the top, and then I went sprinting up all two hundred steps without a pause, feeling the burning in my legs and my lungs by the time I got to the top. I may never work out, but I still like to act like I'm in shape from time to time.
We kept driving north from there, until we got to a national park called "Tel Dan". Wait until I "tell Dan" about this one! Dan was the northernmost tribe of Israel, and this site demarcated the northern boundary. Because Beersheba was the southernmost city of ancient Israel, any Old Testament reference to "from Dan to Beersheba" is meant to indicate all of Israel. The most significant thing about Dan was that the northern kingdom of Israel erected their own altar for sacrifices there, soon after they had first split from the southern kingdom of Judea. In an attempt to separate themselves religiously from their southern neighbors, they needed to set up a place for sacrifices as an alternative to the Temple in Jerusalem, which until then had been the only place at which sacrifices could be made. So they set up one altar in the north at Dan, and another one in the south at Bethel. Then they named some new priests out of the tribe of Levi, and presto, we have ourselves a means of making our own sacrifices!
The only way to get to the location of the ancient altar at Dan was by hiking down a nice trail that snaked through shaded woods for about a mile. Like I've said before, those instances in which I get to go hiking are some of the times here in which I truly feel the most like myself. The trail was level the whole way, and it zigzagged along a bubbling creek, which is actually one of the sources of the Jordan River.
Many of the stones around the altar are still standing. In the center, they've erected a metal frame to give us an idea of how big the altar really was. I was very surprised at how huge it actually was - no description in the Bible really does it justice. It was the size of a couple of large rooms, and the top sat at least ten feet off the ground. On top of its large surface, priests were able to slaughter dozens of rams and bullocks and goats at the same time. The remains of a large cesspool are still there - this is where the copious amounts of blood of those sacrifices drained. These sacrifices must have been a grisly sight, to say the least.
There really are two reactions that one can have to this whole concept of animal sacrifices en masse. One is, why on earth would anyone want to be part of a religion that does stuff like this? Never mind that just about every religion from that day and time was doing something involving slaughtering and hacking and shedding blood. But the other reaction is one that should shed some light on our own condition: This is how seriously God takes our sin; this is the kind of atonement that is necessary to set our relationship right with Him again. And in case you're thinking that it's a good thing we're living thousands of years after that and we've moved beyond such barbaric rituals... nothing really has changed. Our sin still has the same severing effect on our relationship with God, and it still needs atonement in a very dramatic and life-severing way. That's where Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross comes in. As the author of the epistle to the Hebrews put it so well, if only X amount of sin can be atoned for by the sacrifice of a pure, spotless, unblemished lamb, what would be the "atonement capacity" of the sacrifice of a pure, spotless, unblemished man? In Jesus Christ, such a man was finally available, and as the High Priest he was able to offer himself as that sacrifice, which had infinite "atoneability", if you will. So are bloody sacrifices still necessary for our sins to be washed away? They sure are. And Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross was enough to satisfy that need. It just goes to show that this ancient practice of sacrifices that I was pondering there at the altar of Dan is still very relevant to my salvation today.
When we left the beautiful national Tel Dan national park, we were so close to the border of Lebanon that lunch at a Lebanese restaurant was a must. As we drove towards the restaurant, we skirted along the border, marked by high security fences and a large swath of bulldozed ground weaving its way across the mountainous terrain. Particularly interesting were the signs along the highway warning us not to venture anywhere off the road on foot: "Danger! Mines!" I can't say I see signs like that anywhere back home. (That's probably why one of the American tourists in another group that our guide had led actually took one of those signs with him, causing quite a bit consternation among the security personnel who were searching his bags at the airport later on. "Why would you want a sign like this?" they asked him suspiciously. All he could say was, "Because it's there!" Eventually they let him go, shaking their heads and muttering about how silly Americans are.) As intriguing a possibility as it is that the field I was looking at out my bus window was littered with land mines, I do have to wonder how large herds of cows managed to graze safely in that same field.
Today we hit a similar string of archaeologically significant sites. We started out by going to the ancient village of Capernaum, about a mile north of here along the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum is listed all over the New Testament, because it really was the nerve center of Jesus' entire Galilean ministry. Of special significance is the house of St. Peter, which the Gospels show Jesus doing quite a few things. Since we know that Peter was from Bethsaida, it's hard to know whether the house actually belonged to him or his mother-in-law. But most likely Jesus and his disciples stayed over at that house regularly, judging from its size. The house was preserved well for the first few hundred years after Jesus' death and resurrection, and in the fourth century a Byzantine church was built over the spot where the house had been. After it was leveled by that eighth century earthquake (once again, not the Persians this time!), it remained in ruins until 1989, when a very modern church was built over the same spot, retaining the same octagonal structure of the original. The center of the octagon is a glass floor which lets visitors to the church look down onto the remains of the original church, and even the less defined remains of Peter's house itself. That was where we had Mass this morning. Along with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, this now means that I have visited three of the five "Category One" sites in the Holy Land (places that are absolutely guaranteed to be authentic). The other two await me in Jerusalem.
From Capernaum, we drove all the way back up north almost to exactly where we'd been the day before. We once again skirted the border of Lebanon and arrived at Casaerea Philippi, which is situated around a spring that is the source of one of the creeks that forms the Jordan River. In order for me to explain what this place is best known for, I have to correct something that I wrote in the previous post: The Church of the Primacy of Peter, which is located really just a few hundred yards up the shore from where I'm staying, is not where Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" Instead, that was the place where the disciples encountered Jesus after his resurrection, after they had come back in from a night of fishing. There, Jesus and Peter strolled along the shore, and after asking Peter three times if he loved him, Jesus told him each time to "feed my sheep" and "tend my lambs". So that spot is known as the "Primacy of Peter" because it had one of the other incidents from the Gospels where Jesus makes it clear that Peter would be the head of his Church. I have to clarify that because the place where I went today - Caesarea Philippi - is where the "Who do you say that I am?" exchange actually happened. I really need to check my Bible before I post some of this stuff!
There wasn't too much to see at Caesarea Philippi. There were several pagan temples to the Greek gods situated along the cliff wall, and I was able to follow a nice steep path up the cliff - but unfortunately it didn't go very high. When we left there, we continued to drive eastwards along the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, deeper into the Golan Heights, where we would be having Druse for lunch.
The Golan Heights was originally part of Syria, but Israel managed to take control of that area after the Six Days' War of 1967, and it retained it after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Both campaigns were nothing short of miraculous from the Israeli point of view, and military strategists around the world continue to study those conflicts and shake their heads collectively at how insanely lucky the outnumbered and outgunned Israelis were to win both times. Having now been out of the West Bank for nearly a week, I hadn't realized that I hadn't seen a single soldier or military vehicle the whole time I was in Israel until I got up into the Golan Heights, which still has quite a military presence. The aforementioned land mines are one aspect of that, but the closer one gets to the Syrian border, the more one starts seeing tanks, artillery batteries, and outposts. At one point we even passed a tank that was chugging its way along a rugged dirt road at a rather impressive speed - it was the first time I'd seen a moving tank with my own two eyes. Atop the peak of Mt. Hermon, which demarcates the border between Israel and Syria, two military outposts of each respective nation stare each other down from a distance of a few hundred yards.
To get to the restaurant, we drove through a Druse village. The Druse are not that many, and their religion is an obscure hodgepodge of surrounding religions, along with quite a few innovative things thrown in. Because they believe strictly in reincarnation, they don't bother with any ceremony with the bodies of the dead - there is no funeral, and their burial place isn't even marked. Instead they focus on the soul of the departed, whom they believe enters into whichever is the next baby born in that community. They therefore believe that the souls of the first Druse villagers from the 11th century continue to live in the same village to this day. All Druse men wear very baggy pants, and I swear I am not making up the reason why: They believe that when the Messiah returns, he's going to be born from a man, not a woman. And the men want to be ready, just in case they happen to be the unfortunate bearer of the Second Coming.
Later on, we stopped at a rest stop that gave us a great view of the part of Mt. Hermon that is covered with snow. Almost all the time, it's the only part of Israel that ever sees snow, and so far for me this winter it's the closest I've come to seeing any snow at all. From where we were parked we could see across the Syrian border, and a U.N. peacekeeping facility was perched perilously nearby. One of our guys was about to deliver his reflection on Mt. Hermon, and he thought it would convenient if we were to sit along some rows of rocks while he stood in front of them. But the guide told him that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to walk on the ground in front of the rocks, "because that area has land mines in it as well." OK, we didn't need to be told twice!
After we returned to Pilgerhaus and I napped and showered, I walked out alone, strolling slowly along the seashore, gazing out along the same lake that Jesus must have gazed out on countless times during his ministry. The hallowed shores on which I walked while the sun set made me think of the epic seashore scenes depicted in the incredible vocations video "Fishers of Men". One by one, quotes from that video played in my mind as I contemplated my own calling...
"I think young people want the challenge of being called to something besides just mediocrity. All young people have that deep desire to do something remarkable. To be someone remarkable."
"We need good men who are considering the call to step forward, and not be afraid... men willing to give of themselves... men willing to follow the call... to say, 'What is this?' Something, this sense of being led, being drawn into service."
"There are guys who are probably being called, and not hearing it."
"The priesthood is a supernatural calling... to lay down our lives, so that others may have life... to put one's own desires, one's own will aside, and say, 'Lord, what do you want? I will place anything on the altar of sacrifice. Anything at all.'"
"We need men to give up their life for Jesus Christ."
"It's not natural to be a priest. It's supernatural."
As I contemplated this, I began to imagine Peter and Jesus walking along this same shore, and suddenly I was in Peter's place. Jesus was asking me three times, "Bryan, do you love me?"
"Yes, Lord, you know that I love you," I told him each time.
"Tend my sheep," he replied.
And so the Lord has called me to do just that - to go out to a parish somewhere in the Joliet Diocese and tend His sheep. Am I really up for such a tremendous task? Only with God's grace can it be done. And I have faith that it will happen. Despite all my weaknesses, the Lord will strengthen me, and it will happen.
The last two days have been a potpourri of visits to ancient ruins and towns, all of whose names I've read countless times in the Scriptures. Ever since we left Bethlehem, every day more and more of the Bible has been coming alive for me, if only because I now have an internal idea of how everything is situated geographically. I've especially been struck by how many places we've seen that are mentioned anecdotally in the Psalms, but which I only just now understand. The Liturgy of the Hours covers all of the Psalms over the course of a month, and so over the last eight years I've become very familiar with the Psalms - but not until now have I understood references to Edom, Moab, the fierce bulls of Bashan, the dew on Mt. Hermon, or anything that stretches from Dan to Beersheba. The other interesting thing is that every place I've seen in the last few days is where Jesus spent the bulk of his ministry, so virtually every town and structure has had some kind of connection to what he did and said. Everywhere that I've walked, I've been keenly aware that Jesus may very well have walked on this same ground during his extensive travels by foot.
Yesterday, of course, was the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. This signals the end of the Christmas Season. It really is too bad that we couldn't have been at the Jordan River itself on that day - logistically, it works out better that we'll be going there in another two weeks or so. Instead, it was the first time on this pilgrimage that we privately celebrated a Sunday Mass. In this case, we had it in an ecumenical "meditation room", which like all such things is as starkly decorated as it can possibly be. (Pilgerhaus is also the first and only place at which we're staying on this pilgrimage that has no actual chapel with the Blessed Sacrament present. My prayer time has been spent out here on the shore of the Sea of Galilee instead.)
After Mass, our first stop was the ruins of Chorazin, which was just a little bit north of here. Unlike the other places we'd seen, this town hadn't been destroyed by the invading Persians, but had instead been leveled by an earthquake in the 8th century. For that reason, the ruins were in fairly good shape, with virtually all of the pillars and walls still standing. When nature destroys a town, it does so in a much neater and cleaner way than when people do it. Chorazin was only mentioned once in the New Testament, and that was when Jesus rebuked it: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes." One can conclude from this that Jesus had been working miracles in Chorazin, but nobody there had believed him or had changed their sinful lifestyles. Indeed, the ruins of the synagogue showed that it had incorporated the elements of many pagan cults into its construction, so that would seem to back up what Jesus said about it.
After Chorazin we drove past the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, then eastward to the ruins of the ancient town of Hazor. Hazor is mentioned a few times in the Old Testament - primarily, it was one of the kingdoms that Joshua and the Israelites had to destroy as part of their conquest of Canaan, about 3500 years ago. When they came sweeping into this region, the book of Joshua describes several Canaanite kingdoms banding together under the leadership of Hazor in an attempt to drive the Israelites away. They failed, of course. But when you consider that each Canaanite kingdom was really more of a fiefdom - just a single fortified town, really - it's impressive that the king of Hazor was able to get everyone to fight together in that way. Hazor was situated on a plateau, and from where we stood we could look around and take in a vast array of plains and mountains in every direction. One could imagine Hazor being a central stronghold among the Canaanite kingdoms that were all doomed to fall when the Israelites showed up. About the only interesting thing about the ruins themselves was a very deep cistern, which conveniently had a series of staircases leading us all the way to the bottom. Only the more agile sportsmen went down all the way, and when we got there, we were greeted by a very underwhelming pool of stagnant water. I was the last to leave the cistern - I waited until all of the other guys were near the top, and then I went sprinting up all two hundred steps without a pause, feeling the burning in my legs and my lungs by the time I got to the top. I may never work out, but I still like to act like I'm in shape from time to time.
We kept driving north from there, until we got to a national park called "Tel Dan". Wait until I "tell Dan" about this one! Dan was the northernmost tribe of Israel, and this site demarcated the northern boundary. Because Beersheba was the southernmost city of ancient Israel, any Old Testament reference to "from Dan to Beersheba" is meant to indicate all of Israel. The most significant thing about Dan was that the northern kingdom of Israel erected their own altar for sacrifices there, soon after they had first split from the southern kingdom of Judea. In an attempt to separate themselves religiously from their southern neighbors, they needed to set up a place for sacrifices as an alternative to the Temple in Jerusalem, which until then had been the only place at which sacrifices could be made. So they set up one altar in the north at Dan, and another one in the south at Bethel. Then they named some new priests out of the tribe of Levi, and presto, we have ourselves a means of making our own sacrifices!
The only way to get to the location of the ancient altar at Dan was by hiking down a nice trail that snaked through shaded woods for about a mile. Like I've said before, those instances in which I get to go hiking are some of the times here in which I truly feel the most like myself. The trail was level the whole way, and it zigzagged along a bubbling creek, which is actually one of the sources of the Jordan River.
Many of the stones around the altar are still standing. In the center, they've erected a metal frame to give us an idea of how big the altar really was. I was very surprised at how huge it actually was - no description in the Bible really does it justice. It was the size of a couple of large rooms, and the top sat at least ten feet off the ground. On top of its large surface, priests were able to slaughter dozens of rams and bullocks and goats at the same time. The remains of a large cesspool are still there - this is where the copious amounts of blood of those sacrifices drained. These sacrifices must have been a grisly sight, to say the least.
There really are two reactions that one can have to this whole concept of animal sacrifices en masse. One is, why on earth would anyone want to be part of a religion that does stuff like this? Never mind that just about every religion from that day and time was doing something involving slaughtering and hacking and shedding blood. But the other reaction is one that should shed some light on our own condition: This is how seriously God takes our sin; this is the kind of atonement that is necessary to set our relationship right with Him again. And in case you're thinking that it's a good thing we're living thousands of years after that and we've moved beyond such barbaric rituals... nothing really has changed. Our sin still has the same severing effect on our relationship with God, and it still needs atonement in a very dramatic and life-severing way. That's where Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross comes in. As the author of the epistle to the Hebrews put it so well, if only X amount of sin can be atoned for by the sacrifice of a pure, spotless, unblemished lamb, what would be the "atonement capacity" of the sacrifice of a pure, spotless, unblemished man? In Jesus Christ, such a man was finally available, and as the High Priest he was able to offer himself as that sacrifice, which had infinite "atoneability", if you will. So are bloody sacrifices still necessary for our sins to be washed away? They sure are. And Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross was enough to satisfy that need. It just goes to show that this ancient practice of sacrifices that I was pondering there at the altar of Dan is still very relevant to my salvation today.
When we left the beautiful national Tel Dan national park, we were so close to the border of Lebanon that lunch at a Lebanese restaurant was a must. As we drove towards the restaurant, we skirted along the border, marked by high security fences and a large swath of bulldozed ground weaving its way across the mountainous terrain. Particularly interesting were the signs along the highway warning us not to venture anywhere off the road on foot: "Danger! Mines!" I can't say I see signs like that anywhere back home. (That's probably why one of the American tourists in another group that our guide had led actually took one of those signs with him, causing quite a bit consternation among the security personnel who were searching his bags at the airport later on. "Why would you want a sign like this?" they asked him suspiciously. All he could say was, "Because it's there!" Eventually they let him go, shaking their heads and muttering about how silly Americans are.) As intriguing a possibility as it is that the field I was looking at out my bus window was littered with land mines, I do have to wonder how large herds of cows managed to graze safely in that same field.
Today we hit a similar string of archaeologically significant sites. We started out by going to the ancient village of Capernaum, about a mile north of here along the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum is listed all over the New Testament, because it really was the nerve center of Jesus' entire Galilean ministry. Of special significance is the house of St. Peter, which the Gospels show Jesus doing quite a few things. Since we know that Peter was from Bethsaida, it's hard to know whether the house actually belonged to him or his mother-in-law. But most likely Jesus and his disciples stayed over at that house regularly, judging from its size. The house was preserved well for the first few hundred years after Jesus' death and resurrection, and in the fourth century a Byzantine church was built over the spot where the house had been. After it was leveled by that eighth century earthquake (once again, not the Persians this time!), it remained in ruins until 1989, when a very modern church was built over the same spot, retaining the same octagonal structure of the original. The center of the octagon is a glass floor which lets visitors to the church look down onto the remains of the original church, and even the less defined remains of Peter's house itself. That was where we had Mass this morning. Along with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, this now means that I have visited three of the five "Category One" sites in the Holy Land (places that are absolutely guaranteed to be authentic). The other two await me in Jerusalem.
From Capernaum, we drove all the way back up north almost to exactly where we'd been the day before. We once again skirted the border of Lebanon and arrived at Casaerea Philippi, which is situated around a spring that is the source of one of the creeks that forms the Jordan River. In order for me to explain what this place is best known for, I have to correct something that I wrote in the previous post: The Church of the Primacy of Peter, which is located really just a few hundred yards up the shore from where I'm staying, is not where Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" Instead, that was the place where the disciples encountered Jesus after his resurrection, after they had come back in from a night of fishing. There, Jesus and Peter strolled along the shore, and after asking Peter three times if he loved him, Jesus told him each time to "feed my sheep" and "tend my lambs". So that spot is known as the "Primacy of Peter" because it had one of the other incidents from the Gospels where Jesus makes it clear that Peter would be the head of his Church. I have to clarify that because the place where I went today - Caesarea Philippi - is where the "Who do you say that I am?" exchange actually happened. I really need to check my Bible before I post some of this stuff!
There wasn't too much to see at Caesarea Philippi. There were several pagan temples to the Greek gods situated along the cliff wall, and I was able to follow a nice steep path up the cliff - but unfortunately it didn't go very high. When we left there, we continued to drive eastwards along the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, deeper into the Golan Heights, where we would be having Druse for lunch.
The Golan Heights was originally part of Syria, but Israel managed to take control of that area after the Six Days' War of 1967, and it retained it after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Both campaigns were nothing short of miraculous from the Israeli point of view, and military strategists around the world continue to study those conflicts and shake their heads collectively at how insanely lucky the outnumbered and outgunned Israelis were to win both times. Having now been out of the West Bank for nearly a week, I hadn't realized that I hadn't seen a single soldier or military vehicle the whole time I was in Israel until I got up into the Golan Heights, which still has quite a military presence. The aforementioned land mines are one aspect of that, but the closer one gets to the Syrian border, the more one starts seeing tanks, artillery batteries, and outposts. At one point we even passed a tank that was chugging its way along a rugged dirt road at a rather impressive speed - it was the first time I'd seen a moving tank with my own two eyes. Atop the peak of Mt. Hermon, which demarcates the border between Israel and Syria, two military outposts of each respective nation stare each other down from a distance of a few hundred yards.
To get to the restaurant, we drove through a Druse village. The Druse are not that many, and their religion is an obscure hodgepodge of surrounding religions, along with quite a few innovative things thrown in. Because they believe strictly in reincarnation, they don't bother with any ceremony with the bodies of the dead - there is no funeral, and their burial place isn't even marked. Instead they focus on the soul of the departed, whom they believe enters into whichever is the next baby born in that community. They therefore believe that the souls of the first Druse villagers from the 11th century continue to live in the same village to this day. All Druse men wear very baggy pants, and I swear I am not making up the reason why: They believe that when the Messiah returns, he's going to be born from a man, not a woman. And the men want to be ready, just in case they happen to be the unfortunate bearer of the Second Coming.
Later on, we stopped at a rest stop that gave us a great view of the part of Mt. Hermon that is covered with snow. Almost all the time, it's the only part of Israel that ever sees snow, and so far for me this winter it's the closest I've come to seeing any snow at all. From where we were parked we could see across the Syrian border, and a U.N. peacekeeping facility was perched perilously nearby. One of our guys was about to deliver his reflection on Mt. Hermon, and he thought it would convenient if we were to sit along some rows of rocks while he stood in front of them. But the guide told him that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to walk on the ground in front of the rocks, "because that area has land mines in it as well." OK, we didn't need to be told twice!
After we returned to Pilgerhaus and I napped and showered, I walked out alone, strolling slowly along the seashore, gazing out along the same lake that Jesus must have gazed out on countless times during his ministry. The hallowed shores on which I walked while the sun set made me think of the epic seashore scenes depicted in the incredible vocations video "Fishers of Men". One by one, quotes from that video played in my mind as I contemplated my own calling...
"I think young people want the challenge of being called to something besides just mediocrity. All young people have that deep desire to do something remarkable. To be someone remarkable."
"We need good men who are considering the call to step forward, and not be afraid... men willing to give of themselves... men willing to follow the call... to say, 'What is this?' Something, this sense of being led, being drawn into service."
"There are guys who are probably being called, and not hearing it."
"The priesthood is a supernatural calling... to lay down our lives, so that others may have life... to put one's own desires, one's own will aside, and say, 'Lord, what do you want? I will place anything on the altar of sacrifice. Anything at all.'"
"We need men to give up their life for Jesus Christ."
"It's not natural to be a priest. It's supernatural."
As I contemplated this, I began to imagine Peter and Jesus walking along this same shore, and suddenly I was in Peter's place. Jesus was asking me three times, "Bryan, do you love me?"
"Yes, Lord, you know that I love you," I told him each time.
"Tend my sheep," he replied.
And so the Lord has called me to do just that - to go out to a parish somewhere in the Joliet Diocese and tend His sheep. Am I really up for such a tremendous task? Only with God's grace can it be done. And I have faith that it will happen. Despite all my weaknesses, the Lord will strengthen me, and it will happen.