Day 11 - Ephesus Pilgrimage

What an amazing day! Ephesus was everything I expected and more. We had a beautiful day. There were a lot of people as they were still celebrating Children's Day. In fact, this celebration goes for two or three days.

Ephesus is the most famous of the Seven Churches of Revelation. St Paul spent more than two years here during his third missionary journey. It was to the Ephesians that St Paul wrote his greatest and most challenging letter and also succeeded in converting many away from worshipping the god Artemis.

We began our walk through the ruins at the top gate so that we were walking down hill. This was a really good move as the sun was blistering. Ephesus was quite a town. The Ephesians seemed to have had all they needed, including a Library and toilets. The name of the Library is 'The Library of Celsus'. The ruins of Ephesus are still fairly built up and you can get a real and vivid sense of what life must have been like in these times. The amphitheatre is enormous and seats 25 000 people.

We walked through the ancient marble streets from the 10th Century BC and we saw this most 'complete' Roman city providing us with a great insight into Imperial Rome. We also saw the Temple of Hadrian.

After we went through the town of Ephesus we walked around to the ruins of the Christian Basilica. This was called The Church of Mary (The Council Church). This was where the Council of Ephesus took place in 431AD. Here, we found a shady spot and the Cardinal gave us a talk about the Council of Ephesus. This was very interesting and I could hardly believe that I was sitting in the place where big decisions were made about what we believe in as Catholics. At this Council, decisions were made about what are now determined as heretical statements regarding Mary. It was here, that Our Lady was proclaimed "Mother of God" or 'Theotokas' which means 'bearer of God'. I have taught this over the years and was now walking the land on which all of this took place!

After this, we had lunch and then went to the Museum of Ephesus. This was interesting. Here, we saw some smaller findings from tombs, etc. We also saw some statues that had been retrieved from archaeological digs and saw some replicas that have been made depicting what life would have been like in these ancient times.

From the Museum we then went to the House of the Virgin Mary. This was a serene and beautiful place to be. We walked through what is believed to be the House of the Virgin Mary and then went and had Mass in the Sisters' Chapel. The Chapel was filled with natural light and was modern. It has been a while since we have seen a Chapel like this one.

After Mass we had some free time. I went back to the House of Mary, which had a shrine dedicated to Our Lady, and just sat for a while and prayed. I found it difficult to leave but knew that there were a couple of other things I wanted to do.

I then went down to a place where you can write your intention on a tissue and tie it to a wire against a wall along with hundreds of other intentions. There has been an intention that I have been praying for each day so far and I tied this to the other intentions on the wall. I don't usually do this kind of thing but there was something very comforting about adding my intention to the hundreds of others that were there for Our Lady to intercede for us. This was also by the spring which is thought to be the spring from which Mary drew her water. It is from this place that Mary died and was assumed into Heaven.

We hopped back on the bus and then went to our last place for the day. We visited the restored remains of the 6th Century Basilica of St John at Celcuk where a small church was originally built over the tomb of St John the Evangelist. There was a baptistery here and the Cardinal invited us to follow him as he walked through the place where people where baptised. This was a tiled cross that went below the ground. We all did this as a way of reminding ourselves of our own baptisms.

After this, we got back on the bus and made our way back to the Hotel. On the way back we said Evening Prayer. We arrived back, had a bit of a rest, had dinner and then back to our rooms to turn in for the night.