Stories from the First Cathedral 35

As we finish Holy Week for 2021, I thought I would bring you a story about Bishop Whipple's trip to the Holy Land in 1865. In America, the Civil War was near the end. On Bishop Whipple's return home he heard the sad news of the assassination of President Lincoln. The trip was hard on the Bishop's frail physical condition. He was sick many times, with a final relapse in Paris. Bishop Whipple writes about his trip in Chapter 20 of his autobiography, The Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate. His episcopate was only 6 years old when he took this trip to the Holy Land.

I enjoyed reading this short chapter in his autobiography of only 10 pages. I have been to Israel three times and was graced by visiting the holy places marked by creative churches, many that were built by the famous Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi in the 1920s to 1940s. Bishop Whipple used guides to take him to holy places, but important biblical places weren't as well marked as when I traveled there from 2004 - 2016. I love the way Bishop Whipple describes his time in Israel. Here is an excerpt for that 20th chapter of his autobiography:

"It has blessed memories of apostolic preaching, of miracles of healing, and a long line of martyrs of Christ. The beauty of a distant view of the Holy City is lost by an approach from the Jaffa road; and yet I am sure that no Christian ever looked for the first time upon Jerusalem, that he did not cry from the depth of his heart, "Beautiful, beautiful is Mt Zion, the joy of the whole earth!"

"On the hill which overlooks the city I was met by one of the good deaconesses of Kaiserworth and her school of Arab children, who had come to welcome an American bishop with a song."