Kavala/Neapolis

On the same day we visited Philippi, we stopped for lunch at Kavala, which in ancient times was the seaport Neapolis.

I was full from eating so much that I opted to go for a walk instead of have lunch.

A beautiful promenade along the harbor.

These were working boats. 

The Byzantine fortress in the background.

The 16th century aqueduct.

Here is the beautiful prayer card that Peggy Arizzi made for our pilgrimage. It shows St. Paul stepping onto to Europe (Neapolis or modern day Kavala) for the first time. This mosaic is in Kavala and we got a quick glimpse of it as our bus drove out of town.

On the back of the card is this scripture, from Philippians 4:4-9

Always be glad because of the Lord! I will say it again: Be glad. Always be gentle with others. The Lord will soon be here. Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything.

With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel.

Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don't ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise.

You know the teaching I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my examples. And God, who give you peace, will be with you.

Paul in Philippi II

Above are the ruins of ancient Philippi. Besides baptizing Lydia, Paul also cast out a demon of a slave girl, who had made her owners a lot of money because of her ability to predict the future, thanks to the demon. 

This loss of revenue angered the girl's owners and they had Paul brought to court, near the area above. Our guide Alexandra told us that when a trial was going on if it wasn't a good case, the crowd would rush the bench!

But in Paul's case, he and his companions were flogged and thrown into jail. And then this happened:

About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened, there was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook; all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, "Do no harm to yourself; we are all here." He asked for a light, and rushed in, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved." So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house. He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once. He brought them up into his house and provided a meal and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.  

                                                                                                   Acts 16:25-34

We don't know exactly where all the above events transpired, but it wasn't far from this area.

Ruins of ancient churches and other buildings in Philippi.

The arches.

The different layers of the wall.

The crosses.

The flooring.

The auditorium.

The stairs. 

And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value. so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
                                                                                                        Philippians 1: 9-11

Paul in Baptizes Lydia in Philippi

Beautiful lake on the way to Philippi

From Turkey, Paul went to Philippi, a Roman colony in the Macedonia region of Greece. As usual, he wanted to talk with people about Jesus Christ.

"On the sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river where we thought there would be a place of prayer. We sat and spoke with women who had gathered there. One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, 'If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,' and she prevailed on us."
                                                                                                                    Acts 16: 13-16

The slabs of stone in the photo above date to the time of Paul.

In way, it's amazing how quickly some of the people Paul spoke to, like Lydia, were converted. They had gone along their whole lives believing what their parents believed, and what likely generations before them had believed. Then they hear the Good News of Jesus Christ and they believe--God come down to earth in human form, walking among them, and proclaiming the most fantastic things: the last shall be first, love your enemies, you must die to yourself to live, through suffering and the cross comes joy, death is not final. Maybe it was a relief to believe this, as impossible as it seems. Maybe, as Jeremiah said, God has written his law on our hearts and we know. We know what is good, true, and right, and it isn't the worldly wisdom of me first. It must have been so liberating to have someone come along and tell us how it really is, that God walks among us and within us, and what we know in our hearts to be true is true even if the world doesn't always reflect it.

Above, Fathers Michael and Bob prepare for Mass at the river where Lydia was baptized. It was difficult to hear Fr. Bob's soft voice above the rushing water, but I did hear him say at the end of his homily that we can surrender to God, step by step. Step by step in Latin is gradatim and that was my grandma's high school class motto: Gradatim.

We prepare to renew our baptismal vows.

Here is the Bapistry of St. Lydia.

Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vanity; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

                                                                                                                      Philippians 2:3-4

There were beautiful mosaics throughout the Bapistry of St. Lydia. Some of the Byzantine art is so severe; I like the lightness of the mosaic below of the child on the shoulders of the adult.

Church of the Immaculate Conception in Thessaloniki

In Thessaloniki, we went to Mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Like many of the churches in Greece, its exterior is yellow.

This was a special place for me because my brother Jim was born on the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception.

Love the crosses inside the hearts.

The Annunciation.

When I visit churches, I like to take a photo of the Ninth Station of the Cross, Jesus Falls for the Third Time. Jesus fell three times while carrying his cross. He gets up three times. This gives me hope for myself when I so frequently fall.

In the reflection after Communion, Father Michael asked God for the grace to carry out our vocations. This is exactly what I want to do, what I recommitted myself to doing after Jim's death. I lit a candle for Jim in the church.