Each time I hear the name of the infamous Herod, the Great, two things come to mind. First, his obsession with everything grand and lavish. Second, the Andrew Loyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar’s (JCS) wackiest musical number in syncopated rhythm or the ragtime style. In JCS, the musical captured Herod’s…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 5): En Route Jerusalem (Haifa)
On the fifth day of our Holy Land Tour, we left the Northern District for Jerusalem en route the Modern City of Haifa, the Ancient City of Caesarea, and the Village of Eir Karem, our gateway to Jerusalem. For this trip, we went to see the Stella Maris Church on top of Mount Carmel. We…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 4): Nazareth, Israel
Why Nazareth is important to Christian / Catholic pilgrims today? Nazareth is described in the Gospel of Luke as a town in Galilee and the hometown of Mary, mother of Jesus. Although it was not explicitly mentioned in the same Gospel that Joseph was from Nazareth, it can be inferred that it was also his…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 4): Cana, Israel
Kaf’r Kanna, popular in the modern version of the Scriptures as Cana is a small Galilean town in the Northern District of Israel. Christians and Catholic pilgrims and devotees associate this modern village of Cana as the site where Jesus turned water into wine. In the Christian tradition, this is the first miracle that Jesus…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 4): Tabor Mountain
The fourth day is a continuation of the journeys of Jesus and the Apostles in North Israel. This time, there is a focus on the presence and role of Mary, Jesus’ mother in Jesus’s life and ministry. To reiterate, the sites that we visited on Day 4 were collectively part of Israel’s The Galilee Journeys…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 3) The Start of Palestine / Israel Leg, part 2 of 2
The next stop was Capernaum – it’s another personal favorite. It has almost the same features of the Felix Romuliana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Zamzigrad region in Serbia, which I visited in 2018. And to date, Romuliana is one of my favorite UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Of course, Capernaum and Romuliana…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 3): The Start of Palestine / Israel Leg, part 1 of 2
We were told that we would spend at least two hours in the Allenby (Palestine) – King Hussein (Jordan) border before finally having our passports stamped by the immigration officers and enter Palestine, the gateway to Israel via Jordan. By 10 AM, we already crossed the King Hussein Bridge and we were already lined up…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 3): Madaba and the End of the Jordan leg
Petra was very tiring but it was also really fantastic. We arrived back at Amman around 5:30 in the afternoon – too early for Dinner. Our guide asked us to take some rest or do some walking nearby. As soon as I got inside the hotel room, I immediately started packing my stuff for the…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 2): Petra and Wadi Musa, Jordan
My very first encounter of Petra was based on the adventures of Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr. Jones was a professor of archaeology, who in 1981 was tasked to locate the ark of the covenant. In 1989, his adventures continued as he traveled to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, leading to arguably the most…
The Holy Land Tour 2022 (Day 1): Madaba and Amman, Jordan
I am so grateful that I had this opportunity to follow the Bible trail via the Holy Land Tour that me and four other family members participated from 2 to 13 December 2022. We were part of a group of 49 individuals plus one tour leader from the Philippines. For most members, this was a…
Tanghal Kultura 