2001

On the left of this page you will find a link to the 2001 Belmont Abbey pilgrimage news. How little things have changed! Dom Brendan gives a wonderful sermon there about Zaccheas and how all Jews, Muslims and Christians ought to greet each other as a son or daughter of Abraham. What a difference that would make! The situation in Gaza is now very serious. At least we were able to visit Jericho and Palestinian areas. This is after all why we went on the pilgrimage. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor had urged us to visit Bethlehem. We were so fortunate that Dom Brendan had arranged such a comprehensive journey so we followed Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, Paul - so many different strands interwoven so well. The book he gave us "The Holy Land a pilgrim's companion" by David Baldwin proved invaluable and so did the booklet covering all the liturgies packed full of great hymns not least the Welsh ones! The Cardinal has since signed our copies of the book.
Watching Howard Jacobson on Christianity on channel 4 when he comments that Christians deny their Jewish heritage one certainly could not say that about this journey!In fact the encounters with Jews, Druze and Muslims were fascinating and enlightening!

The pilgrimage

The wilderness,
entrance to Beersheva, platform overlooking Tel Beersheva, Mass at Avdat and camel train at Avdat (made of metal) Mary playing the keyboard at Mass,
This is an unofficial blog chronicling the Belmont Abbey 15 day pilgrimage led by Dom Brendan Thomas in 2008. Liz and I joined the group at Heathrow on Thursday November 6th, as most of the group of 36 had travelled from Hereford by coach. The El Al security procedures were stringent but efficient and Maranatha tours reps were on hand to greet us and give us our badges (which kept falling off!). Dom Brendan presented us with our booklets and we immediately noted some favourite hymns. Our flight was a little delayed and lasted just over 5 hours to Tel Aviv. There we were delayed as Renata's case had gone missing. Alas we did not cash traveller's cheques at the airport as we knew we would be going into Egypt. The information we had been given should have said that hard currency not traveller's cheques was needed. We handed over British currency to Ray who was handling the tips and donations and we wished we had held onto it. In the end we borrowed from 4 people! Our coach took us to the Beersheva hotel where we were welcomed with drinks and snacks. First surprise swimming pools closed since September! Saturday 8th we were up early for a hearty breakfast and a visit to old Beersheva ruins with a panoramic view towards the new city, There we saw the well outside the gate and descended into a water storage cistern dating back to 2000 BC. Abraham's well was here and the trade through here was important for Solomon. We celebrated mass at Avdat in a Byzantine church in the Nabotean fortress. Then the long drive down to Eilat.On the way we had views over the wilderness where the Israelites wandered for 40 years. No wonder - every hill looks like the next one! At Eilat on the Red Sea we crossed the border into Egypt literally carrying our luggage across No Man's Land! I visited Eilat in 1972 and there was hardly anything there - now it has many hotels and spots to go diving! On to another coach and another long drive into the Sinai desert. Dinner was not impressive and the room very basic.