PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND - May 8-15, 2009

What a totally successful day in Nazareth! The Mass went well and the congregation was so appreciative. This afternoon's events were momentous and happy, with their quiet minutes when Papa prayed in the grotto of the Nativity [Annunciation basilica] and their joyful ones when representatives of the three monotheistic religions stood up and joined hands as a rabbi sang a simple song of peace. I suppose everything will be distorted again by the press, but who cares?

Thanks for your reporting on this thread, Teresa!





AND THANK YOU, TOO, MARY, FOR BEING THE FIRST 'VISITOR' OF RECORD HERE. I am sorry that of all the Pope's trips so far, this is the one I have been most remiss on, in terms of promptness and comprehensiveness. This gives me an occasion to explain my difficulties.

Basically, it's lack of time - and it takes such a toll because if one cannot keep abreast of the events as they happen, it is so much more difficult to try to cram on more than one event that has taken place while a new one is happening. Especially keeping up with the photos.

So many photos are being filed that if you don't catch them as they are filed or shortly thereafter, you either tend to miss them, or have to wade through at least 100 photos to make up for lost time - my preference, but it means I have to copy every photo into a holding folder, where I can copy them in a pre-sorted way (chronologically and by occasion) that I can later look through more easily to choose which ones to post, rather than having to go through the Yahoo slideshow all over.

My biggest frustration is how they cover liturgies - they pay so much attention to before and after, and very little to the actual liturgy. If it's a Mass, all you get is some incensing, the lifting of the Gospel book, and Communion giving. Today, there were no Offertory or Consecration photos at all, and none of the homily.

Or they could try paying more attention to the moments when the Holy Father is simply looking on or listening. It's possible to catch him looking like some photo we know well from as far back as 60 years ago - and I was thinking today that I should get software for video-capture so I can do just that myself!