In the whispering of a soft wind

Already almost a month ago now I had the great privilege to be in the Holy Land. That’s right! The very land where our Lord walked, preached, slept, ate, prayed while on this Earth. I’ve been wanting to write about it for a while now but nothing more than just snippets of the week’s events were coming to me. I wasn’t sure how to connect it all in one train of thought. I still don’t know if I’ll succeed but I figure it’s time to share some of the graces I received.

My AVI sister who accompanied me: Clara

I still can’t decide if I actually had no expectations for the trip or if I had too many to be able to organize into concrete desires. In any case, I managed to arrive with open and empty hands ready to receive what He had planned for me. My disposition was simple: my Husband-to-be was taking me home to meet the family, see where He grew up, and visit the places most dear to His heart. Naturally, as any girl would be, I was nervous. What will it be like to be in these places? Will I fit in? What will He reveal to me about Himself there? Will I be capable of receiving Him when He shares His heart with me? And will I, in turn, be courageous and vulnerable in sharing mine with Him?

Being a pilgrimage, I didn’t travel to the Holy Land alone. I was with a rather large and diverse Italian group. In total we came to around 230 pilgrims, occupying 5 buses, and traveling from three different airports in Italy. This in itself proved to be a huge blessing as I was given the opportunity to meet new people and discover their unique beauty continually as the week went on. Being divided into smaller groups according to our bus I was able also to cultivate deeper friendships with those who lived this experience more closely with me throughout the week.

Rather than list off where we went and when, I’d like to simply share moments of encounter I had with Jesus particularly in His humanity. One would naturally imagine a pilgrimage to be a very spiritual experience with many interior movements. This is true in general and was true also for this trip but what I was not expecting was the strong human experience I had of the presence of Christ. In these 8 days He spoke to all of my senses, exterior and interior.

One way in particular that Jesus continually assured me of His presence throughout the week was in a soft, refreshing breeze on my cheek. Whether it reached me while on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, or on the beach at the end of the day when the Red Sea was as dark as the sky, or as a wave of heat in the Negev Desert, or in the silence of the sunset over Jerusalem up on the Mount of Olives, it always carried the same message: I am here with you. I am always with you. And there’s nowhere else I want to be.

the Sea of Galilee seen from Capernaum

Many things in the Holy Land have changed in 2,000 years. Very little of what you can see in the “old city” of Jerusalem, for example, was ever actually seen by Jesus. However, one thing that has changed very little is the landscape. Thus, one of my favorite things to do was to simply contemplate the landscape…the same landscape that Jesus’s eyes would have beheld. I was able to do this for a long time one evening in Capernaum at the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We were right near the house of St. Peter which would have most likely been the house of Jesus during His 3 years of public ministry in Galilee. Sitting there observing where the water met the sky, comparing their different shades of blue, and taking in the hills in the distance as the setting sun slowly filled the sky with hues of pink and orange I didn’t have many thoughts. One simple thought that occurred to me over and over however was as follows: How many times would You (speaking to Jesus) have come to this very spot after a long day of preaching or before a long night of fishing to just be with Your friends and admire the beauty of Your own creation? The answer came in a simple, soft breeze: to this day He still brings His friends to this shore as He had done that very evening with me.  

Another evening on the shore, but this time the shore of the Red Sea, a place never visited by Jesus in His earthly life. I found myself there later than the time before. It was already well past sunset and sky and sea alike had settled into a deep blackish-blue. Again I didn’t have many thoughts. (As I write this now I realize that this fact of having few thoughts is probably one of the greatest graces I received on the trip being usually a slave to my own numerous and complicated ones.) Before the immensity of this great sea that God had separated to let through His beloved people, I felt completely relaxed and full of joy. Nearby a group of us was playing a guitar and singing Italian classics with a jovial spirit. Further off in the distance I could hear Arabian-style beach dance music and the hum of excited voices sharing a vacation experience. Isolated as I was from the various groups in the vicinity I had no reason to feel alone. He was there with me, caressing my cheek with a soft sea breeze, assuring me that I was there by no accident. He had organized it all to have me alone for those few precious moments.

The following day we were anything but at sea: we were in the Negev Desert. I was struck first and foremost by its beauty, a beauty foreign to me and very captivating. The same delicate red sand that whirled up with the wind in a mini dust storm combined to form big, sturdy rocks that took on the appearance of hills. The few brave plants to be seen were more grey than green. The second chapter of the Book of the Prophet Hosea immediately came into mind: “I will allure her into the desert and speak to her heart…” Our guide told us before arriving that the desert was “il luogo dell’amore”: the place of love. In his book, Hosea recounts to us the story of a Lover (God) who leads His beloved (Israel) into the desert, stripping her of all her smaller loves that distracted her from Him in order to restore and renew their exclusive spousal love. Sometimes it seems that the Lord does the same with us, and at first the desert is not a pleasant experience: it’s hot, there’s no water source, everything looks the same, there’s a sense of solitude, and what we previously had is sorely missed. Staring out at the wild beauty of the Negev Desert from my little nook of shade I was taken by the romantic notion of heroically entering into  it “taking nothing for the journey” (Lk 9:3) and being satisfied by the presence of God alone. This idealistic fancy was quickly stifled when I realized that indeed God was offering me the chance to go out into the desert, or rather He was asking this very thing of me. You see, upon my return home I was to start a new university where I had no friends, knew no one and nothing, not even the location of my classrooms or the names of my professors. I was already suffering from the thought of no longer seeing my friends from the old university so the reality of it was not exactly appealing to me. But again, that soft breeze, this time more warm than fresh, captured my attention. “With age-old love I have loved you; so I have kept my mercy toward you” (Jeremiah 31:3). The promise of His presence was not meant to take the pain away, and alas it did not, but it made the idea of being in the desert much less scary knowing I wouldn’t be there alone.

One of the more intense experiences we had occurred in no other than the Mount of Olives, the place of Jesus’s “yes” as one Franciscan guide called it. Here Jesus, against all the human desires and fears He strongly felt, freely gave His complete obedience to the Father. In this place He took all of our sins upon Himself in an act of selfless love to the point of accepting death…death on a cross (Phil 2:8). In this very place I had the great privilege of participating in this by going to confession. What grace flowed in and out of that garden as around 200 people handed over their sins to our Lord! We were gifted 2 hours of silence there around the time of sunset. I couldn’t help but smile at the huge providence to pray in the Garden of Olives at the same hour Jesus Himself preferred. There I was in perhaps Jesus’s most intimate place while on this Earth. He desired to share that place with me. To share with me the sunset over Jerusalem, the soft whisper of the wind that blew through the olive tree leaves, the great peace of a place in which the words most commonly exchanged between Father and Son were “I love you.” There, in that sacred yet utterly human place, I was invited to join in on this song of love raising my voice in a melody of continual “I love you’s” sure to be reciprocated: “I love you’s” that arrived to me in the whispering of a soft wind.

Another intense place was certainly the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where present are both the hill of Calvary and the empty tomb of our Lord. I can’t claim too many intense emotions (outside of impatience for the long lines and chaos inside). But having a good 4 hours to pray there I found myself a comfortable, out-of-the-way, corner at the foot of the hill of Calvary in a chapel they call “Adam’s Chapel”. Here I knelt for at least an hour, and the Lord deemed it opportune to communicate with me through human words: human words from the mouth of perfect strangers. The first tap on my back came from a Spanish speaking woman who, after learning that I didn’t actually speak the same language, insisted upon sharing with me her message anyways. Luckily I do have three years of high school Spanish under my belt along with several of Italian (which I think helped the most). Her message was simple, nothing new, but so important for me to hear: Jesús ti ama. Está aquí (as she touched her heart). And then looking at me and softly touching my cheek, tu es linda.  (Jesus loves you. He is here in your heart. You are beautiful.) Returning to prayer with a soft smile, it is not long before I feel another gentle tap on my shoulder. This time, upon raising my gaze, I am met by 2 sets of eyes belonging to 2 girls younger than me: one from Germany and the other from Israel. This time the language is English and they ask to pray for me. I share with them superficially my worries about going to a new university and they begin to pray over me in soft whispers. Their words were of an incredible simplicity and yet completely appropriate for what I was living: Lord, help Cherise to trust in Your presence with her in this transition. Help her to make friends and be confident in herself in this new place. After they left that soft smile turned into a soft laughter as I realized the Lord wanted to be very clear with His message to me so He sent me human words to reach my human ears. There I was at the foot of Calvary touched by the humanity of Christ through His body, the Church, of which He is the Head and we are the members.

"Gloria, gloria a Dio..."

The place most precious to me in the whole trip was also that which was most suprising. I didn’t even know that we knew were this place was nor did I have a desire to go there before the trip. It was a place of utter simplicity and humility, often forgetten, and seldom the focal point of Sunday homilies. It was the place near Bethlehem known as “Shepherds’ Field”. Tradition tells us that here over 2,000 years ago a choir of angels appeared to some unsuspecting shepherd’s to announce the Good News of the arrival of the King, the Savior of the world, who was to be found as a newborn child in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Entering into a small chapel built on these grounds our group began to sing “Glory to God in the Highest…” as had done the angels upon their visit to the shepherds. Inside of me was a new sensation: a sensation of the purest and simplest kind, a certainty of my own salvation, an assurance that everything was not just going to be fine but wonderful, the promise of His presence. Away from me were all fears, worries, and anxieties. In my heart remained only one overwhelming sentiment: joy. And this joy was manifested in the tears that streamed freely down my cheeks.

If I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, I manage to return to those places and experience His consoling presence. But the real beauty of it all is that I am not limited to my memories. Even here in Rome His breeze reaches me to assure me that as I walk the halls of my new university, mop the floors of our apartment, or chase after the unpredictable buses of this eternal city, He is with me. And every land becomes holy in His presence.