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

My Niece

Here's a picture of my niece, Elizabeth Grace, born on Friday! Isn't she beautiful? Congratulations Jim and Michelle! Hope I get to meet her soon!

-Mike

From Babel to Pentecost

The other day we went to the Upper Room here in Jerusalem- where the Last Supper took place. They were holding a prayer service there for Christian Unity- it was beautiful to see Christians from all around the world crowding in. Near the end we all prayed the Our Father in our own languages (which were many) and at first I thought it sounded so discordant and messy- (like the Tower of Babel! -see Genesis 11) but as we all ended at about the same time it occurred to me quite powerfully that it sounded something more like Pentecost must have. After the service we climbed some stairs to a small, unheated, unadorned chapel; the Chapel of the Holy Spirit where the apostles hid for nine days after Jesus rose into heaven. There they heard a rumbling rushing sound which filled the house, fire from heaven came down and rested on them- and they all were given the ability to speak in different languages- so that they could go out and preach to all nations. A crowd gathered outside, wondering what the sound could be, and everyone gathered there heard the apostles speaking in their own language. A tradition holds that the apostles knew where they were being sent to go and evangelize by the language that they were given to speak. St. James went to Spain. St. Thomas went to India. Peter went to Rome. John cared for the Blessed Mother. Philip went to Turkey, Jude to Syria, Andrew to Greece. Simon went to Africa, and maybe Great Britain as well. (all the places had different names then, but of course the Church outlasts countries). Holy Spirit come and fill the hearts of thy faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of thy love!
-Mike

New Jerusalem Pictures up...

Greetings, Pilgrims. More Jerusalem pictures are now up on Picasa... but not too many captions yet! And we're off to Jordan for some days!

This is Dominus Flevit, "The Lord Wept," a church on the Mount of Olives commemorating the Lord's tears as he looked across at Jerusalem. Luke 19:41

God Bless,

Ben

Congratulations Bishop Sample!

Today, 2 years ago, Bishop Sample was ordained bishop and installed as the Bishop of the Diocese of Marquette! It is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. Oh happy day, at least for us! For him, a new and heavier responsability, to be sure.

Thank you for your enthusiastic, faithful, and courageous service these past years. May God grant you many more years of service.

God Bless,
Ben

Check our our new header!

What do you think of the new header? Created and designed by Mrs. Jenny Raiche! Jen, that's awesome... thank you very much!

God Bless,
Ben

What am I to do?

I sat on the bus, I sat in the chapel, I sit here in this darkened room at 11:00 pm and think.

What am I to do?

Today, we spent part of the afternoon at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial here in Jerusalem. We spent almost 2 hours there, but it was barely time enough to see one part of it, much less engage or process the hellacious history it tells. In the last minutes of the visit I visited the Children's Memorial, which commemorates the approximately 1.5 million Jewish CHILDREN killed during the Holocaust.

As we drove away, my head was spinning. Not all of what I saw or read was new to me... I spent some days at Auschwitz, including hearing a survivor speak, when I was in Poland in 2001. We were following the footsteps of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who died there at the concentration camp. In some ways, the picture at Yad Vashem was bigger, in some ways narrower. It spoke of the situation throughout the Reich. But, it spoke mostly of Jews. I do not necessarily fault it in this regard... that is a big enough story to tell, and certainly the story most central in Jerusalem. It is perhaps the unique horror of the Holocaust and the Third Reich, although certainly not the only one. I struggled not to let a search for perhaps an extreme or inappropriate objectivity dominate my attention. The experience of actually visiting Auschwitz was made real and alive again.

The enormity of what was done is really hard to grasp. By many accounts, 6 million or more lives taken specifically because of the religion/ethnicity of the people involved. Men and women, the old, the young. The healthy and the sick. Shot, starved, beaten, injected, gassed, burned. Each one a human person created in the image and likeness of God, with inestimable dignity. A number that large easily becomes meaningless.

So, the central question in my heart, mind, soul as we pulled away was this. What am I to do? It is necessary to analyze the situation historically, politically, philosphically, theologically. But, if I look primarily at others, other times, other places, I think the key moment is lost. The one over whom I have the most, if not complete or perfect, control, myself, can be ignored. What am I to do?

I must pray. For those who died, for those who killed them, for the tremors and aftershocks that still rock the world we live in. For forgiveness, for strength, for courage.

Here is one moment I think that really matters: I must examine my heart, my words, my conduct. Where do I allow hatred and violence towards others to reside? To look at what the Nazi's did and act as if it is so very far away from my own sin and inhumanity is perhaps disingenous. I could certainly overstate this... but what can be more fruitful and more revolutionary and more truly the good leaven of grace in the world than to allow this moment to be one of conversion in my heart... What am I to do? Who am I to be?

Lord Jesus, I do not understand.... Lord Jesus, I trust in You.

What are you to do? Who are you to be?
-Ben