After two weeks tracing the footsteps of Saint Paul across the ancient landscapes of Turkey, followed by a week immersed in the sacred memory of Greece, we have finally arrived in Rome—the Eternal City, the heart of our faith, and the center of our pilgrimage.

This morning, on the second Sunday of Advent, we began the day with a brisk walk through Athens to the Chapel of Saint Joseph which was in a shopping mall near the hotel.

While there were no stockings bearing gifts hung up at our hotel, we were blessed with the gift of a beautiful day on this feast of St. Nicholas after the 48 hours of downpour.

We began our day with a bus tour of Athens, finishing at the Acropolis and the Areopagus. Unfortunately, the tour came with plenty of rain.

How often do we take time to consider the the world around us or even the world within us? Well, today was quite the opportunity to do so for me. Not much beyond sitting on a bus happened this rainy day in Greece.

St. Francis Xavier is often depicted with his heart on fire, demonstrating the consuming love for Christ that drove his missionary efforts in which he claimed more that 30,000 souls for Christ through the saving waters of Baptism.

We started our day today at an overlook of Thesolonica. There we had an amazing view of the whole city.

The start of a new liturgical year also marks the start of the next portion of our journey with St. Paul.

These are the many things that run through our heads and hearts today as we prepare ourselves for the next part of our Pilgrimage.

After yesterday’s excitement with Pope Leo, we started today with morning prayer and a simple Mass in the basement of our hotel.

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.