Pilgrimages aren’t vacations; they are journeys of faith — journeys that require planning. And pilgrimages abroad need passports, packing lists and prayers.
That’s what Father Terry Bradshaw, pastor of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown, Ky., prepared ahead of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in early October.
It would be his fourth pilgrimage to Jerusalem, accompanying a group of 30 faithful, including 10 deacon couples. They would visit Galilee, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives and Bethany. The plan was set.
“We may have our itinerary, but it is God’s itinerary” that we end up following, Father Bradshaw said.
On the sixth day of the pilgrimage, all plans changed. The group was in Jerusalem on Oct. 7 when the Hamas militant Islamic group attacked Israel.
“The plan changed and required us to stay inside a hotel in Jerusalem,” Father Bradshaw explained. “We’d already had five wonderful days in Galilee, where Jesus lived. We now had to stay inside a hotel very near where Jesus was crucified and buried.”
The group couldn’t leave the building, but they could pray, he said. “We celebrated Mass in the basement, which was actually a bomb shelter.”
After two days in the hotel, the group was permitted to leave and was shuttled by bus to Jordan through the West Bank. Their visas were processed and flights were arranged, but it was still two days before the group would leave the Middle East.
“I imagine the itinerary Mary had for their travels didn’t go as they had planned, especially (there being) no room at the inn,” Father Bradshaw said in a December interview. “Whereas Joseph and Mary had to go to Egypt, we went to Jordan.”
He said the group was treated kindly and faced no animosity. He never feared for his life.
In fact, he felt calm.
The day before the attack, Father Bradshaw said he was on Mount Tabor when he felt “a very deep peace” come over him. “Little did I know how important that gift of peace was over the next four days.”
That peace never left him.
“People ask me if I was afraid, and I would say, ‘No not really,’ ” he explained. “We knew it was serious and we didn’t take it lightly, but as for being afraid, we really weren’t. Joseph was told ‘Don’t be afraid,’ and we really weren’t afraid.”
The group was able to spend those two days in Jordan visiting holy sites there, which Father Bradshaw considers a blessing.
“They’re holy sites, it’s not like the Bible only happened on the west side of the river,” he said. “Things happened on the east side.”
‘That was a journey of faith. That was not on our itinerary, but that was a journey of faith. And God is still on that journey with us even though we’re here.’
Father Terry Bradshaw
The new itinerary included visiting Mount Nebo, where Moses died, and seeing some of the ancient churches.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would do it,” Father Bradshaw said resolutely. “I would do it over again if it happened exactly the way it did.
“Would I go there now? No. It’s much too dangerous. But just to say, ‘Was it a mistake?’ No. That was a journey of faith. That was not on our itinerary, but that was a journey of faith. And God is still on that journey with us even though we’re here.”
Father Bradshaw said that while his group was treated with dignity, respect and care, they recognized that the people who live in those regions face very different circumstances.
“We see things on the news, but it’s never as real as when you are actually there and you see people who live there who are touched by war personally,” he said. “It’s one thing to see it on television, it’s another thing to see it in proximity. It caused us all to pray more for everyone involved, Israelis and Palestinians, perpetrators and victims of war.”
