2010 Pilgrimage: Day 6 Blog Entry

Sent by Father Joe:

We began the day with Mass at St. Peter's in Capernaum, the church is over the ruins of the home of St. Peter. During Mass instead of the homily I read the St. Malachy prayer list as a way to specifically pray for our brothers and sisters in need.

We then traveled to Beth Shean to visit the Roman ruins of the city of Scythopolis one of the Ten Cities (Decapolis in the gospels). We saw another Roman Theater, a bath house, a gymnasium as well as the columns that lined the streets.

From there we went to Jericho in the Palestinian territory where we saw the oldest man-made structure in the world; a tower dated from 7500 BC. When we drove through the tunnel under the Mount of Olives we glimpsed Jerusalem for the first time, what an awe-inspiring sight.

We continued on to Ein Kerem the birth place of John the Baptist and saw both the church commemorating his birth as well as a beautiful church commemorating the Visitation of Mary.