The True Life in God 12th Ecumenical Pilgrimage in Greece

“Discovering the Country of Saints” October 26, 2019-November 3, 2019

(The Greek people are called ‘Hellenes’—which means: the people who walk with God.)
As a prelude to this account of our pilgrimage in Greece, a True Life in God Message given to a pilgrimage group who came from Athens and Rhodes to pray and learn the rosary in Patmos – The Apocalypse Island-on July 25, 1989 coincidentally relates directly to our week’s highlights:

“…awake! beloved ones; I am your Saviour, the Crucified, your Redeemer; feel My Love…
for your sake I have come to increase love and diminish evil; I come to provide your soul with all that it lacks; have no fear little ones, am I not Bountiful? am I not the Highest? so have confidence, for you are in your Father’s Arms; I, the Holy Trinity, am One and the Same;

abandon yourselves entirely into My Arms and allow Me to form you into Living Columns of Light, allow Me to share all that I have with you; I love you!” (True Life in God Message, July 25, 1989)

On the eve of October 26, 2019, our True Life in God 12th Ecumenical Pilgrimage began, this time in Greece. Our beach-front hotel was situated in Marathon: an ancient town near Athens, where the battle of Marathon was undertaken and won by the Athenians in the year 490 B.C. The beauty of the surroundings was breath-taking. Our hotel complex was built to look like a small village of single-standing hotel suites, which looked like small townhomes. The smoothed-rock outdoor walkways were lined with beautifully flowered trees, stimulating our senses with majestic aromas. God’s beauty in nature mirrored His beauty within our souls as we grew closer to Him each day during our eight-day pilgrimage. 720 people from around the globe arrived at the Golden Coast Hotel to participate in and share this journey towards unity with God and each other. It was a lively reunion, with people introducing themselves, rekindling friendships, and reacquainting themselves with one another. Among the crowd, there were 89 Christian clergy, 3 Muslim sheiks, 3 Muslim speakers, 1 Rabbi, and 2 Buddhist monks. Overall, the crowd comprised 21 Christian denominations and 8 non-Christian representatives: Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim (Druze, Sunnite, and Shiite). Some additional clergy members who intended to come could not get their visas in time for the event. Jesus’ work for unity is all encompassing, as He told Vassula time and again that He will bring it about. He states:

“…Vassula, have patience; I have said that My Word is like a rivulet flowing; then from a rivulet it will start rushing into a river, broadening, then it will be gushing and My Word will turn into a vast ocean, an Ocean of Love immersing your hearts with love and Love will be among you as Love;” (True Life in God Messages, February 4, 1988)
It was apparent that we all felt an immediate rush of the Holy Spirit as a warm wind sweeping through us and in our interactions with one another. It permeated our gathering that evening and throughout the week.

Sunday October 27, 2019

The full swing of the week began the following morning, on Sunday, October 27, 2019 with a very early breakfast and a welcome procession led by Vassula holding the crucifix and trailed by all the clergy. Each clergy member introduced himself, giving us a glimpse of his religious affiliation and residence location. We deemed the importance of their calling, giving respect to their clerical stature. They are God’s shepherds, the leaders of His flock.

After the procession, Vassula welcomed all the pilgrims. In her speech, she reminded us that God does not distinguish between His creatures, and we should take His calls and warnings seriously: “So if people faced the reality of Love in God and in men, they would be led to love God and one other… If everyone realized that we live in moments of unbelievable Grace and Mercy and that God, with full power, is renewing His creation, we would never cease to glorify God night and day and our hearts would be inflamed with zeal! If people were paying attention to the Lord’s calling for conversion, all men and women would already be saints.”

After Vassula’s welcome, Father Vincent read the list of the pilgrimage’s participating countries. Every time a country name was read, the pilgrims from that country stood up with a shout of joy. It was touching to see people from a diversity of countries united lovingly in one room.

Greece, our host country, had its leaders, both in the church and in its military. A great Athenian leader, Miltiades, guided his troops towards victory– ‘Niki’-(the Greek word for victory) against the Persian army who wanted to conquer Greece in the 5th century BC. The Battle of Marathon, a documentary of it which we viewed via video, clearly depicted the strong, preservation-seeking Greek spirit. We noted in the documentary of the Battle of Marathon that the Greek people chose to fight for their spirit, their values and their culture with all their might, all their being; 3,000 soldiers marched all night into Athens to complete their victory, after defeating the troops in Marathon. They are a people with a passion for their beliefs and to the best of their ability will let nothing take it away. The Persian army was three times the size of the Athenian, yet the Athenians, using almost super-human energy, heroically strategized and physically guided the troops to victory. For us, our modern-day spiritual victory comes through Christ; and on this day, following the video documentary, four speakers from various denominations spiritually awakened us.

The first to speak was Archbishop Simon Atallah, of the Maronite Church. Archbishop Atallah focused his talk on Jesus’ commandment of love. He expanded on the novelty of this lesson, and explained how unity is the fruit of love: “This unity, at the levels of the family, the community, the Church and humanity, is the sign of the inner man, developed in us by the love of Christ and our rooting in Him.”

The second speaker was Bishop Riah Abu El Assal from the Anglican Church. He reminded us that: “Long years have been spent in the search for UNITY within the Body of Christ. Thousands of pages have been dedicated to this subject. We differ in our views about how the Spirit could create unity in diversity. Some try to exclude from God’s unconditional love those whom God insists on including in His divine compassion and grace. However, at that first Pentecost in Jerusalem, the apostles spoke in each of the recipients’ native language (Acts 2:6). One wonders if it is our lack of divine love that brought us back to Babel.” He concluded with a prayer from the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans about Unity.

The speech by Metropolitan G. Haddad, from the Melkite Church, explained how spiritual love is unconditional and without expectations. He highlighted that pride and the critical spirit is the great enemy of unity.  As the final talk of the day, Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein presented a Jewish teaching about the connection between Wisdom and Peace.

After concluding the morning talks, our pilgrimage tour brought us to the Acropolis, at the Parthenon, to view Athens from above. After Christ’s coming, the Greek people ‘the Hellenes’ gave Our Blessed Mother Mary the same name ‘Parthena’, to honor her virginity. Here, near the Acropolis, on the Aeropagus Hill, is where Saint. Paul delivered his well-known sermon to the Athenians and spoke about the inscription “to an unknown god.” (cf. Acts 17:22) We had the opportunity to see and hear how Greek antiquity prepared itself to receive Christianity as its foundation. To receive a glimpse of this history, our bus tour took us to see the highlights of modern Athens.

Upon our return to our hotel, we concluded our day with a Roman Catholic celebratory mass.

Monday October 28, 2019

Day 3, October 28, 2019, heralded-in another radiant day blessed at its morn with a Syriac Orthodox Liturgy after collectively singing the “Our Father” prayer in Aramaic. As we sang, our meditation on Jesus inspired us to understand that we, as the true, unified, body of Christ offer the Father our prayer in song. We are Christ’s manifestation, His manifested work for God’s Kingdom. At the liturgy’s conclusion, a few angelic voices sang a very spiritually driven song. As a remember to pray each morning, the organizers gifted us a three-daily prayers card, placed on each seat, enclosed with icon images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. At the tail-end of the liturgy/mass, we lifted our gifted cards in unison and the priest blessed them. Taken as a souvenir of our pilgrimage, each would add a blessing to our homes. Moreover, at this time, Vassula received a special award from Archbishop Mor Silwanos Boutros. Three post-mass/liturgy talks enticed us to listen, learn and more deeply understand God’s plan for humanity.

Metropolitan Athanasios Canepa from the Coptic Church spoke about the peace of Christ: “To make peace around ourselves, we need to firstly make it in our own hearts and in our intelligence.” He said that “without charity, no act of religion pleases God.” He explained that the Holy Spirit is the principal force of unity based on the words of Cyprian, martyr and Bishop of Carthage from 258 AD: “The Holy Spirit had in mind this one Church when he said in the Song of Songs: She is one, my dove; she is perfect; she is unique to her mother.” Believers, therefore, have only one house, only one Church. It is this house; it is the harmony reigning here which the Holy Spirit has in mind when we hear in the Psalms: God unites in the same house those who are united by the same thought, the same feeling; that is to say, the house of God, the Church of Christ, is inhabited by simple souls, united together by the bonds of a common faith. Hence, the Holy Spirit shows Himself in the form of a dove.

Pastor Jarle Tangstad from the Pentecostal Church of Denmark ended his speech with a beautiful conclusion:
“And always remember the wheel principle:
– Everything starts with the centre
– The unity is closest near the centre
– The better we understand each other and dare to trust each other, the further out we can reach and the bigger the wheel can be.

Frank Sinatra sang “I did it my way”.
Sorry, for us there is no My way but only His way – God’s way.”

Our third talk from Sheikh Mohamed Ali El Hajj– Shiite Muslim was read-out, as he had never obtained his visa to be with us. It began by mentioning the Muslim narrative: “Is religion anything other than love?” He linked that narrative to Jesus’ teaching about love. He also suggested a vision for the work of True Life in God and ended his talk by saying that it is our duty and responsibility to spread our way of thinking throughout the globe.

As we digested the plethora of information and insights gained from the day’s talks, we departed for Ancient Corinth to visit its ruins, the Corinth Museum, Epidaurus, its ancient theater, and the Sanctuary of Asclepius.

Saint Paul lived near the agora in ancient-Corinth for about a year and a half. People from many walks of life came to Corinth, so he was able to spread his message to those from other areas, and other lands. The honored Church of Saint Paul is now placed at the spot on which he preached. Moreover, Saint Paul worked during his stay in Corinth. We viewed parts of an ancient harbor where Saint Paul arrived and where he worked. Corinth is an isthmus, so it was an easy access for travelers. From the ruins we saw that this was a prime spot in Corinth for Saint Paul’s resonated and echoed message about the risen Christ to be spread across the world at that time. Corinth is situated at the edge of the northwest part of the Peloponnese. It is here where any and all goods and people could be transferred to the Ionian Islands and to Italy. It was called ‘akro’ (The edge). The Peloponnese has an amazingly beautiful landscape with rivers, high mountains and natural, hot springs. It is laden with olive and fig trees. From Corinth, we moved onto Epidaurus, an enormous, staged area: the oldest stage in antiquity, and then to an ancient healing area built within the nearby forest. The complex, dated between the years 600-800 BC was dedicated to the god Asclepius and it looked like the makings of a health resort. It was enormously big, with sleeping quarters and baths. Those who came to be healed would sleep, face-down, on a dedicated space on the ground, and try to dream about the god Asclepius, who intended to heal them. Through this history we saw and heard how this ancient culture valued healing from the divine. It prepared itself to finally receive Christ and the Holy Trinity into its culture, finding healing to this day through Christ’s intervention in their lives. On our return to the hotel, we dined and later had the opportunity to adore Christ in the Eucharist with an evening-capped Adoration.

Tuesday October 29, 2019

Tuesday, October 29th, was an early wake-up to the sunrise. As we hopped on the bus at 6:30am, hoping not to miss it, we were welcomed with happy faces and enthusiasm. It woke us up to what seemed as strength from a force beyond ourselves. We began our walk to the back of the bus, when a passenger looked over at us and said “Another day. Thank God we have a new day.” God indeed provides us rest, even within the movement of our journey, so we can participate in His gifts. Our energy comes from the unity that lies among us. All 720 pilgrims climbed onto a ferry boat, at t