Father Tom’s Excellent Adventure
(Monastery Church of Hosio Loukas, Distomo, Greece)
From September 10 to September 17, Father Tom, along with his brother priests of the Sabbatical program, made a pilgrimage to Greece in the footsteps of Saint Paul.
Highlights included visits to the ruins of Philippi (“Paul, of course, wrote a famous letter to the Christians in this city. We saw the place where he was brought before the magistrates for preaching the name of Jesus, as well as the place where he was jailed”); Kalambaka, where the group visited the Meteora—several Orthodox monasteries built on high sandstone mountains (“Today was one of those days where one finds just how long and loyally people have committed themselves to their Christian faith”); Delphi, with its museum of the ruins of the Temple of Apollo; the Byzantine Monastery of Hosio Loukas in Distomo (“There is an interesting dynamic of a double church — one dedicated to the Blessed Mother and the other, adjoined to it, dedicated to the monastery’s founder, Saint Luke the Hermit, whose relics are in a glass enclosed case in the choir area of that church. Thus, the Church in heaven joined with the Church on earth in offering the continual sacrifice of praise!”); and, finally, Athens, with stops including the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum, which displays icons and holy objects from early Christianity to the 19th century. Upon their return to Rome, the group attended Pope Francis’ Angelus this past Sunday.
They now are on retreat for the week under the direction of Fr. Luke Buckles, O.P., who teaches at the Angelicum (the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas) in the areas of dogma and spirituality. Father Tom’s prayers are with us… and ours with him!