For decades I enjoyed sharing with English classes the lively humor of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, especially the prologue. I never dreamed that I, like the Wife of Bath, would go on a prayer pilgrimage not just to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket but to the Holy Land itself. Unbelievably, I will enjoy this privilege from Nov. 8-17 this year! My friend and former colleague in the Theology Department Carol Costigan and her husband, Ed, are giving me this journey of a lifetime. My sister Rita is also going on the trip.
After so many years of also teaching Old and New Testament, the places mentioned in the Gospels will come to life for me as I follow in the footsteps of Jesus. We will be staying in hotels in Bethlehem and in Jerusalem and will go out from there. I am looking forward especially to celebrating Mass at the Basilica of the Annunciation and also on Mount Calvary as well as going to Ain Karim where Mary visited Elizabeth and Zachary and the unborn John the Baptist. We will take a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee which Jesus and his apostles crossed so often and also pray at the famous Wailing Wall. We will visit Capernaum, Cana, Mount Tabor, Qumran, the Dead Sea, the Grotto of the Nativity, and even follow the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
You can read between the lines how excited I am! I promise to keep all of my former students, friends , and family in my heart and pray for you at all the holy places. I’ll take a camera and keep a journal, but I can’t promise to write a Chaucerian prologue.
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