This morning, we left Bursa at 5am to head to Istanbul to see the Pope!

Happy Thanksgiving! Having briefly paused our journey with St. Paul (We’ll catch up with him again in Greece), we turned to spend a day dedicated more to secular history.

After yesterday’s late evening return from Ephesus, we started today’s pilgrimage with an “upper room” Mass at our hotel – we turned the rooftop restaurant, which was closed until lunchtime, into our early morning chapel.

We left our hotel in Izmir this morning for a day trip to the ancient cities of Miletus and Ephesus.

As I write this post, we are a week into our pilgrimage following in the footsteps of St. Paul.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. What words can capture the grandeur and majesty of our God, Jesus Christ, the King of the universe?

We spent the night in Antalya, where St. Paul departed from after his first journey in 48 AD. This morning, we had Mass at St. Nicholas Church.

This morning began with a gift: the chance to celebrate Mass in a local church – only the second time we’ve been able to do so during our pilgrimage.

We woke up in the early hours of the morning with great expectation. We weren’t sure if it was going to happen or not.

What a day! Our adventures started even before the first destination. The bus ride was filled with absolutely gorgeous views of the rugged terrain of Cappadocia.

We started the day early at 3:30 in the morning, local time. We had to be up at this hour because we had a flight from Istanbul to Adana that departed at 7:00. The security at the airport was quite surprising.

After leaving Mundelein Seminary, we traveled 22 hours to reach Istanbul at around 6:30 last night, our first destination for the 2025 Mundelein Pilgrimage following the Footsteps of Saint Paul.