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Holy Year, holy journey
Local Catholics prepare for Pauline pilgrimage
By J.D. Long-García, jdlgarcia@catholicsun.org
August 21, 2008
Walking in the footsteps of St. Paul transformed Fr. Vernon Meyer, a local biblical scholar.
Fr. Meyer, in residence at St. Patrick Parish in Scottsdale, spent years reading and studying the Bible. But when he finally made a pilgrimage to Israel, “it all really made sense to me,” he said.
“I thought I knew it pretty well,” he said. “When I had the chance to go to Damascus in Syria, and Ephesus in Turkey and Athens and Corinth in Greece, it brought Paul and his letters alive in ways that I never expected.”
Fr. Meyer remembers standing on a recently excavated section of a Roman street in Tarsus.
“My heart was pounding and my ears were ringing,” he said. “This is where Paul walked! He was actually here!”
Fr. Meyer will lead others on a similar journey next spring as part of the Year of St. Paul. He will bring pilgrims to Athens, Corinth and Rome March 5-13 and to the Holy Land May 14-24.
“In spite of the security hassles and the tourist traps, the pilgrimage still has the power to bring the pilgrim close to the holy places in a transforming and life-changing way,” Fr. Meyer said.
He will host an informational meeting at St. Patrick Parish at 7 p.m. Aug. 27 for the March pilgrimage. The cost for the Athens, Corinth and Rome pilgrimage is about $3,000. The cost for the Holy Land pilgrimage is just under $4,000.
“Time and money are always the barrier to making a pilgrimage and the feat of traveling itself can be a major barrier,” Fr. Meyer said. “Some pilgrimages are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and now may be as good a time as any to make a pilgrimage.”
Gerry and Marge Colbert, parishioners at Ascension in Fountain Hills, have made pilgrimages with Fr. Meyer before.
“As we listen to the Scriptures being proclaimed each Sunday we feel like these events, in the areas we visited, are happening right now,” Colbert said. “Corinth is a real place — one can feel Paul’s anguish over the people who didn’t pick up on his message.”
Sylvia Pressley, a St. Patrick parishioner, took a trip to Greece and Turkey with Fr. Meyer last year.
“Athens with its architecture and arts reminds [the pilgrim] of its glorious past — what a sight to behold,” she said, “and to think that I was at Mars Hill where St. Paul spoke to the Athenians.”
After leaving Athens, Pressley’s group traveled to Corinth where St. Paul lived for two years and wrote two epistles.
“I’m still in awe that I traveled in the same footsteps as St. Paul,” she said.
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