Given that most of our blog posts are about the different sites
we've seen, you might think that all we do is go on trips and have a lot of
fun. Well, that's mostly true. We do do those things. But another vital,
yet less glamorous part of our time is spent in our studies.
It dovetails quite naturally with everything that we have been
experiencing. Every day, we are praying with the psalms in the Liturgy of
the Hours. In one of our classes, we are learning about the history,
structure, and poetry of the psalms. It helps us better enter into the mindset
that our ancestors had when they wrote them. Walking around Jerusalem and
seeing the surrounding areas, we get a deeper sense of how the land impacted
how the Israelites prayed.
Every day, we see how ecumenism and interreligious dialogue work (or
don't) in life in the Holy Land. Through our readings and our guest
lecturers, as well as our trips, we gain insights into and an appreciation for
the many different faith traditions that manage to co-exist here..
Finally, as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, we also dive into
the Gospel of Luke. When we read about Jesus walking from Jericho to Jerusalem,
we approach it with a different perspective because we have seen that road. We
have stood in some of the places where Jesus worked his many miracles. We
have knelt in prayer before his tomb. All of these experiences have
enriched our studies, but our studies have also impacted how we approach these
sites and events.
When we were in Bethlehem, by happy coincidence we were celebrating
the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas while in the chapel of St. Jerome. Both
of these men were very well known for their devotion to study and learning. St.
Jerome once wrote that "ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of
Christ." St. Thomas had a vision in which the Lord wanted to reward him
for all the good writing he had done; Thomas responded, "I will have
nothing but you, Lord." If we want to grow in love of Christ, we have to
grow in our knowledge of him through our studies. Then, hopefully, we can say
with St. Paul: "I know him in whom I have believed."