Back in the ol' U.P.!

Greetings, Pilgrims! After almost two days of continuous travel, Mike and I are back in the glorious Upper Peninsula! We celebrated our return as we crossed over the bridge from Marinette to Menominee this morning!

I've got more pictures to post, and we've each got a few more blogs, so don't go away. I hope to have the pictures up tomorrow. If you have any lingering questions about the Holy Land, Jordan, our travels, etc, don't hesitate to post a comment, but do it soon!

Thank you each and every one of you for sharing this pilgrimage with us, and especially for your prayers. It has been a gift and blessing to try to share this journey via the blog and the pictures. This process has enriched the experience for me, and challenged me to think about the meaning and value of different events and places!

Of course, the pilgrimage continues, as our life here is itself a pilgrimage, a holy journey, a journey to the Lord and with the Lord. Please continue to keep Mike and I in your prayers as we continue to prepare for, God-willing, ordination to the diaconate on October 17th, and to the priesthood the following June. I will continue to pray for each of you!

God Bless,
Ben Hasse

P.S. That's my dad and I getting ready to go for a ski! And then with some of the students at DACS!

Welcome to Jordan!

Greetings, Pilgrims! We've been out of touch for some days now, enjoying Jordan. We've had several days of snow and rains since we got here, but the warmth of Jordanian hospitality have more than made up for it! Mike and I have both commented that, after the way we've been received here, it feels like we've never been hospitable to anyone before!

We've been staying with my friend Amal, her husband Jeries, and their little boy Laith. They're letting us stay in a vacant apartment below them where their grandparents used to live! We've also spent time with my friend Maher and his wife Nisreen. They and their families have treated us like royalty! And it's not just friends - many times we've been told by a taxi driver or someone in a shop as we leave, "Welcome to Jordan!" The overall feeling here is much more relaxed and easy-going than in Israel and the West Bank - obviously, there's nothing here in Jordan like the conflict that dominates life there.

I'd always imagined Jordan as desert, and most of the country is in fact desert. But from Amman north and west, it is actually quite fertile hills, with olive orchard, pine and oak-covered hills, and plenty of other agriculture. Maher was working on his Ph.D. in forestry at Purdue while I was working on my bachelors degree, and now he's the head of his department at the Jordanian University of Science & Technology. He took us on a tour of some forests last weekend ith his wife - it was awesome to be able to ask all the forestry questions I've been wanting to ask all these weeks!

This picture shows Mike and I eating with our hands, the traditional dish of rice, lamb, and a kind of goat's milk/yoghurt sauce! We were actually told to do it this way by Maher's father, and he obliged by modeling the proper method of rolling the rice and lamb into a ball, using the yoghurt sauce to stick it together! I LOVE Jordan!

There's lots of new pictures up at Picasa, so check them out!

God Bless,

Ben

The Last Batch of Jerusalem Photos

OK, after 3 hours of reviewing and selecting the photos, Mike and I have put up 5 new albums on Picasa (Link in the Left Margin) from the last 10 days or so of the pilgrimage. Fortunately, it's been cold and rainy here in Amman, Jordan, so there's been little excuse to go out and get wet!

We've also been catching up a little on a few blogs we meant to write earlier, so stay tuned!

Hopefully, we'll have some Jordan photos to post soon, but it's been hard to take photos in the rain! Fortunately, Amal and Jeries have welcomed us with extraordinary hospitality, including an entire furnished apartment!

God Bless,
Ben & Mike

P.S. Here's a PICTURE LINK so you can go right there!

P.P.S. And, nearly all the pictures have captions - Mike put most of them up, I've been filling in on some of the older albums. So, if you've looked at the pictures, and wanted to know what was in them, try now! - Ben

Where are the Holy Places?

Some weeks back, we received a very good question in a comment: How do you know where the Holy Places are?

The easiest sites are the big ones. Examples of this would the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount within Jerusalem. When these are spoken of in Scripture, we know what they are talking about. These sites may look different now, the water level may be higher or lower, but there is no doubt about where they are. It was a very powerful experience to swim in the Sea of Galilee back in early January, knowing that hear the Apostles fished, here they were called.

Next, I would say, we have the key specific spots, like Calvary or the Empty Tomb, or the Church of the Nativity. How do we know they're on the very right spot? It's actually the result of an interesting fillip of history. In 70 AD, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, razed to the ground. They expelled the Jews from the area, and destroyed any Jewish or Christian shrines. However, in order to ensure these sites could not be used for worship, on the most important ones they constructed pagan temples to the Roman gods! For some generations, the city of Jerusalem was known only by the new name, Aelia Capitolina, and many forgot the sacred history. However, in the 4th century, the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal. He and his mother, Queen Helena, commenced a building spree and built many important churches. In the Holy Land, they were able to dig up the pagan temples, and find the ruins of early churches beneath them! In the end, the Romans' desire to destroy the faith actually monumented these sites for posterity!

Finally, there are other sites where it is much less certain, and where we have little early record. For instance, there are three possible sites for Emmaus. Many agree that Mount Tabor is the sight of the Transfiguration, while some think it is Mount Hermon. Scripture does not always give us clear or unequivocal directions about where things ocurred. It is important to know that the sites are not perfectly certain. At the same time, this does not diminish the opportunity to venerate the tradition and the event at that site.

Before coming, and in the early days of the trip, this was an issue I thought about quite a bit. After a few weeks, though, seeing the River Jordan, the Mount of Olives, and realizing that I was unequivocally and without doubt in the Land of Jesus, I realized that even in the cases where we're not perfectly sure, I was still SO close! He walked through these hills and valleys, along the shores of this lake. The Gospels are certainly not just pretty stories, they actually happened!

The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us!

God Bless,
Ben

I thought of heaven

A few days ago we attended mass with a French Religious community somewhere on the Road to Emmaus. The monks and nuns there wore crisp white habits and veils, and when they bowed down double I realized how thin many of them were, and their faces gaunt [with fasting?] They sang beautiful resounding harmonies. A nun played this instrument I'd never seen before- it had a set of strings for each hand which were set perpendicular to the neck and drum like a sail (or some suspension bridges). She played this enchanting, driving, sort of sad accompaniment while the priest chanted the Gospel in french. I thought, 'if i make it to heaven, I hope they sing this as I walk up to the gate.' It was a sound which drove me to silence: I realized, "this is what our voices were made for." I stood afterwards facing the walls and studying the frescoes- the images were preserved only piecemeal and the faces of the saints had been sanded off somewhere in the centuries.

We had our morning of reflection yesterday. I can’t believe it’s the end of the pilgrimage! We went to Dominus Flevit for our final, official pilgrimage mass. It is a quiet spot halfway up the Mount of Olives which commemorates the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem as He sat upon a colt, and people sang Hosanna. I sat picking a guitar in some clovers under a red pine- over the silver green tops of olive trees and the roof of the Church on the terrace below me I could see all of Jerusalem. My mind was mostly blank after ten weeks of travel and experience and intake. I felt like I’d just come out onto a bridge through a railway tunnel and found that the ground had dropped beneath me, and the train was hundreds of feet above the land. I thought of Revelation 21- the vision of a New Jerusalem coming down: the symbol of heaven. This pilgrimage has just been a compact version, or a microcosm of that larger pilgrimage that we are all on.

People e-mailed me and said that they feel as though they’ve been able to see the sites through our eyes- and I thought of how much all of you have been very much a part of the pilgrimage for me, and I really have carried you with me.

We still have a few more things to say so keep checking back! Thanks for journeying with us-
Mike

Snow in the Holy City!

So, it's not so common for there to be snow here in Jerusalem, but a week ago we got two days in a row. It was wet slushy snow, as the ground was nowhere near frozen, but it was beautiful in it's way, and much needed water in a dry land. We had a couple tours canceled as a result, so we also had those days almost off! Snow day in the Holy Land... who would have guessed. After an early morning walk around the city in the slush, I resigned myself to wet feet, and tromped around with abandon! It was nice to see the holy sites with a white crust. Check out the new album on Picasa (link to the left) to see some pictures. There are also a lot more pictures from Petra in Jordan in another album.

While Chris (a brother seminarian from New Hampshire) and I were making a snowman outside the Old City near Damascus Gate, a Polish woman named Danuta walked by. I'd met her the day before at adoration at the Fourth Station in the Armenian Catholic Church. I imagine there's quite a bit of a story behind the three Polish women there who run Adoration here in the Holy Land... how did they come here, what is their precise mission? She was very welcoming at the Adoration, and encouraging to me as a seminarian. Then I ran into her again while making the snow man... you realize this is a small community, particularly the Catholic community. If you were to live here for any significant time, I suspect you'd be networked in pretty quickly!

I hear there's lots of snow in the UP! I hope I get to cross-country ski a little bit when I get home! That's the end of this little ramble!

God Bless,

Ben

Hello Menominee!

We have been getting GREAT support from Menominee! Thank you so much MCC and now Resurrection's religious ed! We wanted to post a blog to answer some of the questions from their classrooms!

We want to challenge and encourage any of our readers (especially students) who would like to comment or ask questions to do so before the end of our pilgrimage (February 11th)! Below we're going to answer the questions SandyB's religious ed class asked in a comment on "What passes through your neighborhood?" below.

Kayla, it's been awesome to walk where Jesus walked! I hope you can make it here someday. It has been challenging and rewarding to be travelling and living as pilgrims for 3 months!

Courtney, (it is cool)- the most amazing thing I've seen so far....hmm.
Mike: the other day I was walking the Via Dolorosa, the way that Jesus was led as he carried his cross. At the Fourth Station, where Jesus saw our Blessed Mother, there was a chapel where they were having Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. (ask your teacher about the similar chapel in Marinette) I sighed in relief and sat silently in the pew, and was very thankful that the most important things back home are simply the most important things.

Ben: (is thinking about a good answer) Finally - sorry it took me so long... I'm not sure this qualifies as MOST amazing, but definitely amazing... a couple days ago in the afternoon I was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and suddenly there was only a few other people around, so I was able to go into the Empty Tomb, which was actually empty for a change, and pray by myself for maybe 5 or 6 minutes. A quiet little gift!

Hailee, Ben did ride a camel, but just for a few minutes, in Jericho. We'll post a picture. Here it's actually pretty cold right now. It might even snow on Thursday! But rainy cold, not cold like in the UP. Down in the Jordan Valley, and especially by the Dead Sea, it's almost always warm. We sleep in hotels or pilgrim houses.

Deanna, It's a long ways... it took us almost 2 days to get here, a combined total of about 13 hours in the air plus a layover in Zurich, Switzerland. As we mentioned, we've been staying in hotels or pilgrim hostels.

Bryce, we would really like to visit you all, but we're not sure we'll be able to... when we get back we have just a few days break, then the spring quarter, then Mike heads to Tacoma, WA and Ben heads to Anchorage, AK for CPE... which basically means volunteering in a hospital and learning how to be a chaplain. So, it might be tough, but we'll try.

Nick... Jerusalem is basically a big city, but in the old part there are lots of old buildings and churches... most people speak Arabic or Hebrew, and now it's raining!

Hi, Andy!

Breanna, that's a big question! If you read some of the blogs, that will help you see what we've been experiencing.

Sam, we're going to try, but we're not sure we'll be able to visit you all.

Teja Tonn and Madison: right now it's raining and windy, Thursday it might snow, which is pretty unusual here. Most of the time it's been between 45 and 70. What's it like in Menominee right now?

Abby, It would be great to be in Bethlehem again for Christmas, but once Mike and I are priests, we'll probably be very busy in our parishes saying Mass! But, who knows, maybe someday...

Thank you everyone for your questions! Keep them coming.

God Bless,

Mike & Ben

PS Here's a challenge for all the students: Can anyone find out the exact distance from Menominee, MI to Jerusalem? First one with the right answer wins a postcard to your class!

PPS It just started to snow here! I think this stuff follows us around.

What all was made for

Just got back from Jordan. During our long trip on back of the bus several of us read out loud from the beginning of Genesis and talked about it. It struck me in a new way how even from the beginning God gave man so many gifts: "I give you every seed-bearing plant...every tree that has fruit...all the beasts of the earth...all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." Everything on earth has been given us to. To aid in our salvation, to bring us closer to heaven. As a place for worship- that's what it was made for.

Last night we inexplicably stayed at an opulent resort. There were gardens and fountains, a pool overlooking the Dead Sea, really soft mattresses and expensive soaps, antiquated wood doors with brass latches, and a little veranda out the back of every room with low couches where we stayed up late and talked. I definitely felt like an Arabian prince for the night!

I ate the best feast I’ve ever had in my life! Honestly, it put the symbol of the ‘Heavenly Banquet’ into a whole new light for me. Vegetables steamed and some I’d never seen, lamb and wild rice and fancy cheeses, sushi and homemade breads and chocolate mousse for desert (and strawberries and bananas in carmel). You should have seen my face! I enjoyed it all very much, but I have to tell you that I enjoyed it much more than anyone else who stayed at that resort. For me it was an unexpected gift-!

-When we went to Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean a few weeks ago we saw some of the Roman bath-houses there. They were much more luxurious than anything we have now. They had geometrically designed floors out of marble, hot-tubs and saunas, massage tables in the middle of porticoed atriums. There were these vast amphitheatres and hippodromes dedicated to entertainment: dramas and horse-races and such. Caesarea is the city where the centurion Cornelius lived, the first Gentile convert. (Acts 10) Just think of how he gave up that lifestyle when he became a Christian (and later a bishop)! I wonder how St. Peter felt, a poor fisherman, when he went to the extravagent house of that centurion? Or St. Paul, a tent-maker, when he was imprisoned in that city for two years before being sent to Rome? Of course, those people are all in heaven now, and Caesarea is a field of ruins.

It was fun to see the 'other side', but it made me realize how silly it is that some people dedicate and work their whole lives away so that they can live that way. I think I'll give my life to something a bit more important! What is the greater good? What is lasting?
What is your pearl of great price, for which you would give all else? What are you giving your life to?

-Mike