Pastor of Immaculate Conception in Cottonwood Heads to Holy Land
Cottonwood, AZ (PRWEB) January 24, 2014 -- The pastor of Immaculate Conception in Cottonwood couldn’t be more excited. Fr. David Kelash is going to the land where Jesus was born, lived, died and rose from the dead.
Along with parishioner, Deacon Jim Brown, and eighteen other pilgrims, Fr. Kelash will be putting his feet on the sacred soil at roughly 5 p.m. on February 3, 2014. The group will be on pilgrimage for eleven days.
During their trip, Fr. Kelash and his fellow pilgrims will be praying at some of the most ancient Christian sites the Holy Land has to offer. After driving along the Mediterranean coast to Caesarea, once a majestic city where St. Peter preached and St. Paul was imprisoned, the group will visit cities mentioned often in the New Testament, such as Cana, Capernaum, the Mount of Beatitudes and Nazareth.
Organized and provided by Tekton Ministries, a firm that has a special relationship with the Franciscans in charge of the holy places (serving as public relations manager for the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land), the pilgrims will spend their first days near the Sea of Galilee. After that they will go “up” to Jerusalem, just as Jesus did.
The trip to Jerusalem took days to complete for pilgrims in the time of Jesus. For Fr. Kelash, it will only take hours. On the way he and the others will stop at the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized. Next will be Jericho, where the “walls came tumbling down.” Jericho is one of the oldest populated cities on earth. It is also one of the lowest cities on earth, as it is located close to the Dead Sea.
Jerusalem never disappoints. When the pilgrims reach Jerusalem they will spend six days experiencing some of the most intense days of Jesus’ life. From the Mount of Olives they will look across the Kidron Valley through which Jesus walked many times. In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, they will pray on Calvary, site of the crucifixion. They will silently process past the tomb of Christ, left empty by his Resurrection. They will walk the Way of the Cross. And they will see, too, the chapel that marks the place of his Ascension into heaven.
So much can be seen in Jerusalem that it would take two pages just to fill in the details. One thing is sure. When Fr. Kelash and his group return on February 12, they will never read the Bible the same again. They will have concrete experiences of being at the places that before were just words on a page or images in their thoughts. Now they will have memories of the encounters they had with Christ at each holy site.
If you are interested in joining a future pilgrimage, please contact Tekton Ministries at info(at)tektonministries(dot)org or visit their webpage at http://www.tektonministries.org.
Chris Weldon, Tekton Ministries, http://www.tektonministries.org, 866-905-3787, [email protected]
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