Dear Friends, Magdala Family, I am writing to you from Puebla, my homeland, at the end of a 2-week trip to different cities in Mexico. First, I am grateful for my care during my visit to Monterrey, Mexico City, Los Cabos, Hermosillo, Puebla, Tehuacan, and Veracruz. In these cities, I had the opportunity to attend…
Sunrise Stroll & Chat at Magdala By Fr. Cristobal Vilaroig The learned Anglican priest Solomon Malan visited Magdala in April 1842 and pitched his tent just outside the village of el-Mejdel. A few years later, he published a little book entitled Magdala: A Day by the Sea of Galilee (1857), where he shares his experience: “When I…
An Ignored Town By Fr. Cristobal Vilaroig In the last issue, several travelers who passed by Magdala in the 19th century described it as a miserable village. Many other authors of that same century do not even take the pain of mentioning such a humble town. Among them, we mention some of the most authoritative…
Dear Magdala Family, During these weeks, I am traveling through Mexico, but my heart and mind are still fresh with the Youthfest experience, the event in the Holy Land from 21 July to 31. Days after the end of the pilgrimage, a young pilgrim wrote to me and described the event as an “ocean of…
Dear Magdala Family, We are now celebrating the Novena of Mary Magdalene. She is our patron, model and intercessor. She is our patron. By God’s providence we have had the grace of God to serve in the Holy Land in her homeland and hometown. We recognize that she accompanies us from heaven with her example…
Dear Magdala Family, The month of June might seem a bit gray to some. For us, it is not. In the Catholic tradition, June is the month of the Sacred Heart. That is, it is the month in which we contemplate the love of God with greater intensity, expressed in the heart of Jesus. In…
Miserable Village By Fr. Cristobal Vilaroig Throughout the nineteenth century, many pilgrims passed by Magdala, then called Mejdel or el-Mejdel, but they did not see much more than a small village of very little interest. The Swiss geographer Johann Ludwig Burckhard wrote in 1822: Next to Mount Arbel “stands the miserable village el-Mejdel.” Around the…
A Shelter for Adventurers By Fr. Cristobal Vilaroig In 1807 the German explorer Ulrich Jasper Seetzen arrived on the Gennesaret plain. He was accompanied only by a guide named Hussein, and they entered the plain of Gennesaret from the north. Next to the abandoned caravanserai of Beit-Zeide (today Horvat Minnim), the guide told Seetzen that…
My Dear Magdala Family, Time goes by so fast. During these weeks, we have received many pilgrims in the Holy Land, some of them encouraged by our virtual pilgrimages: Welcome to the Holy Land! It is beautiful to meet the faces behind the ‘likes’ we got on our social networks during the pandemic. In May,…
Footsteps By Kathleen Nichols On an early April morning, I quietly slid one of the paddleboards at Magdala onto the glassy surface of the Sea of Galilee for a sunrise prayer over the water. After the sun rose into white heat above the Golan Heights, I turned back toward the Magdala shoreline, using Mt. Arbel…
