Day Two -- Updates and Photos

The Mediterranean Sea stretches to the
horizon behind St. Peter Church in Jaffa,
where Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin celebrated
Mass on Feb. 5.

JAFFA, ISRAEL—In the book of Acts, the apostle Peter has a dream of “something like a sheet” filled with a banquet of food—including foods considered “unclean” by Jews—being lowered from heaven and raised before him three times (Acts 10:9-16).

Peter had this dream in the port city of Jaffa on the Mediterranean Sea.

In that same city—which, being founded circa 4000 B.C., was ancient even in Peter’s day—Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin celebrated Mass at St. Peter’s Church on Feb. 5, the first day in Israel on the Holy Land pilgrimage he embarked upon with 50 other Catholics, most from the archdiocese. (See a photo gallery from their day)

“It was [in Jaffa] that Peter came into contact in a very powerful way with Gentiles,” the archbishop explained. “It was here where Peter realized that the dream that he had of the descending carpet with the different foods was all a revelation for him for something he probably never considered—that God’s saving power went beyond the Jewish people to reach all people.”

As he contemplated the significance of celebrating Mass in the town where this revelation occurred, the archbishop said he “thought of the challenge of the archdiocese where we’re facing an influx of people from a lot of different parts of the world. Sometimes there’s a bit of wonderment on the part of parishes at ‘those people,’ but it’s precisely ‘those people’ that Peter realized he was called to serve. As a bishop, [there is a call] to allow the Lord to broaden your vision just like he did for Peter here.”

Archbishop Tobin concelebrated the St. Peter Votive Mass with fellow pilgrims Father Joseph Newton, sacramental minister pro tem of St. Michael Parish in Greenfield and adjunct vicar judicial for the Metropolitan Tribunal, and retired Father Robert Mazzola.

“I think it’s good that we begin our pilgrimage thinking about the pilgrimage of Peter,” Archbishop Tobin said during his homily. “Jesus maybe has become an idea for us, or someone you just turn to to say, ‘Lord, if you get me out of this [problem], I’ll never do it again.’ Peter will walk with us as we walk these days, when we meet not an idea, but Jesus true God and true man, and get a better idea of what he is in our lives.”

Although he has been to more than 70 countries, the archbishop, like many people on the pilgrimage, has never been to the Holy Land.

“Just to be here is a way of touching that magnificent love that God has for us, that he sent his Son to walk among us,” he said.

Before the Mass, pilgrims enjoyed walking the cobble-stoned, palm-tree lined streets of an old section of Jaffa, with the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea as a backdrop. The city has 36 archaeological layers, according to the group’s tour guide, Tony Azraq. Azraq, an archaeologist, is an Palestinian Catholic who lives in Jerusalem and spends his down time sharing the Catholic roots of the Holy Land with pilgrims.

The current St. Peter’s Church was built in 1894 to replace the church structure built in 1654, which itself was built atop the ruins of a Christian church. The church is administered by Franciscan priests.
On the next day of the journey, the pilgrims will work their way north up the Mediterranean coast—continuing to experience, said the archbishop, “the humanness of Christ as we walk the same soil that he walked.”

See a photo gallery from Day Two of the pilgrimage