Day 5: Avila and St. Theresa

This morning we departed from Salamanca and drove approximately one hour to the city of Avila.  It is an amazing place - a walled city filled with baroque beauty and intrigue.  St. Theresa was born here in 1515.  She was born into a relatively wealthy family and became a significant figure in the renewal of monastic spiritual life.  Her mother died when she was only 12 years old and she turned to Mary to be her spiritual mother.  She fled her family home to run off to the convent.  There she led an austere life but became very sickly and spent nearly an entire year in bed.  At one point they even thought she had died and sealed her eyes with wax.  They had even prepared her tomb.  But she wasn’t dead.  She would go on to live a full life and worked with St. John of the Cross to found 17 Carmelite communities throughout Spain and worked diligently with him to reform the Carmelite rule of life.  She was so well respected as a writer and theologian that she became a doctor of the Church.  Her fascinating life is forever noted in her autobiographies The Interior Castle and The Way of Perfection.  Avila has now become an important stop on any pilgrimage to Fatima as St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross have played a significant role in the life of religious communities and in the history of the Catholic faith.

Part of the gigantic wall surrounding the city of Avila.

A statue in front of the chapel of St. Therese of Avila and the small apartment where she lived.

A relic from the finger bone of St. Therese of Avila

Day Four - Salamanca

 Salmanca is a beautiful university town of just under 150,000 residents.  It is unique with a town center like no other.  The beautiful stone begins in a lighter color and eventually fades into an orange like tone that give it a unique one-of-a-kind hue that is characteristic of this area.  It is one of the four earliest places in the world where universities began and was associated with the church.  The cathedra was the chair of learning and the cathedral was the place where learning was associated.  

There are actually two Cathedrals here - the old, dating from the 1100’s and the new, dating from the 1500’s.  Both are stunningly beautiful yet very different.  The town itself definitely throws off a youthful vibe with many cafes, shops and plenty of places to hang out, visit and shop.  It took approximately 4 hours on the bus to arrive here and, after a few hours for lunch, touring and mass, the weary pilgrims were ready to turn in for a late dinner (8:00 p.m.) and get to sleep for our trip to Avila in the morning.

Day Three: Exploring Fatima - Basilica, Chapel, Museum, Modern Church

Today we took a leisurely walk to explore the chapel a little more in-depth, to celebrate Mass, to visit the graves of Jacinta, Lucia and Francisco, to visit the museum, and to visit the modern church.  After that we had the entire afternoon to explore on our own.  

The chapel is considered the “Heart of Fatima.”  This is the place called the miracle of the sun.  Mary appeared in a very large tree to the 3 children.  This chapel was where we prayed the rosary last night and where it is prayed every evening - rain our shine - no matter what the weather.  It is a protected space.  The statue of our Lady of Fatima is only removed here on the days commemorated Mary’s appearances.  

Day Two: St. Stephen Church, Santarem Eucharistic Miracle, Stations of the Cross - Fatima, Rosary, Procession

 Today was a day packed with miracles and amazing beauty.  We began our day with an hour long bus ride from Lisbon to the city of Santarem where one of the oldest Eucharistic miracles took place in the year 1247 .  A very unhappy woman named Maria came to church that day after visiting a sorcerer who had asked her to bring a consecrated host to her and she would help her in a situation in which she thought her husband was unfaithful to her.  She received the host on her tongue and then took it from her tongue and placed it into a hankerchief and carried it home.  It began bleeding profusely.  She placed it into a chest at home.  When her husband came home, she could not sleep and the weight of guilt on her had her confess what she had done to her husband.  A bright light emanated from the chest where the host was kept.  They prayed and reconciled with each other and the next day she returned the host to the church and it become an object of veneration in the church to this day.  Hundreds of years later scientific tests have been done on the host and it has concluded it is flesh from the heart with the same blood type - AB positive from the same quadrant of the heart as other Eucharistic miracles samples.  

All of our pilgrims had the opportunity to climb up to the Euchraristic elements - still encased in a monstrance behind and above the main altar.  No photographs were allowed but I’ve taken a photograph of a postcard the church gave me and you can see it from there.  Amazing.  St. Carlo Acutis visited this Church of St. Stephen when he was creating his website of the Eucharistic miracles.  

Day One - St. Anthony Church - LIsbon, Portugal

 We all have lost things from time to time.  Most of us have prayed to St. Anthony for that lost item or person to be found. “Tony, tony turn around, something’s lost and must be found.”  St. Anthony is the saint for lost things or persons.  Though we associate him most often with Padua, Italy he was actually born in Lisbon, Portugal.  On our first day of this great pilgrimage, we stopped by St. Anthony of Padua Church, at the very place where St. Anthony was born.  This beautiful and special church is dedicated to his memory and, after mass, we had the opportunity to venerate a relic of St. Anthony.  He was an Augustinian priest - a wonderful preacher.  It was said that even the fish would listen to him preach - spellbound by his ability to communicate the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.  Though his body is preserved in Padua, Italy, a portion of his jaw bone and a portion of his arm are preserved in Lisbon.  We had the opportunity to venerate his jaw bone after our mass in the beautiful Church, on the way to our hotel in Lisbon.  

FATIMA/LOURDES PILGRIMAGE

APRIL 15-24, 2026

 Here is a link to our itinerary for our trip to Fatima and Lourdes

My Final Day - Pergamon

This theatre was definitely the steepest of all the ones I had seen.  It was a 

huge mountainside and definitely a steep incline.  

This was the church in Pergamon.  Interestingly enough, it was down below the mountain, in the town square area.  Today there is a mosque built inside of it.  It was not open to the public as it was being renovated.  I was able to get several perspectives on it from different sides of the building.

My final day in Turkey was a trip to Pergamon.  Pergamon was described as having a strong pagan influence where "Satan's throne" was located.  I could see where St. John may have gotten that.  It seemed like a very sophisticated place.  The theatre alone was amazing.  Over 10,000 seats nestled steeply on a hillside.  A beautiful gymnasium and baths.  Temples erected to pagan gods and goddesses.  A sophisticated aqueduct system and great palaces for the elite.  What king or queen wouldn't want to live in such a paradise?  Pergamon is located about 1.5 hours north of Izmir and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The city is now known as Bergama and it is bustling village on the bottom of the archeological site.  I drove through its narrow city streets and hit a quarreling group of 3 dogs.  I panicked when I heard the "thump" on the car (thankfully not the BMW this time).  The dogs withdrew a bit dazed from the car but it did knock some sensible peace into them and they, and the car, were uninjured.  The city had absolutely no zoning codes.  A drug store, a medical supply company both next to a restaurant and a butcher shop next to a auto repair shop with a candy store next to it.  Bizzare and strange Bergama was but, I suppose, not all that different from the marketplaces in the time of the Roman Empire, the Turks, the Ottomans, or the Greeks as well.

My friend Jennifer.

We took a gondola up to the top of the mountain which gave us a great view of the sides of the mountain and the many hillside archeological remnants of homes and village sites along the way and parts of a road that still remain.  I am still amazed that people were able to come and go freely up and down the steep terrain.  I have to admit that I lost 3 pounds in 7 days just because of the amount of walking and hiking I did at these archeological sites and hillsides I climbed.  

I had such a wonderful time also spending the day with my friend Jennifer.  She was a wonderful companion on the days journey.  When I left my apartment to pick her up at the airport car rental agency it was during a torrential thunder storm.  Lightning was blazing across the skies lighting up the mountains on all four sides of me.  I arrived at the train station with my feet completely soaked in water.  I rode the train to the airport thinking to myself - the first stop is to the store to buy a pair of dry socks.  To my surprise Jennifer had an extra dry pair of socks for me.  Isn't it just like a mom to remember those kinds of things!  And to our even greater surprise, the clouds cleared, the sun came out and we had a delightful weather day to travel in.  

Jennifer teaches Japanese online and one of her students recommended this authentic Turkish restaurant in town and it was very good.  After filling up with some good carbs we did a little shopping in town and she ran into a Japanese friend who runs a small shop making embroidered goods.  The shop has actually appeared in the Lonely Planet tour book for Pergamon and she proudly displays it, showed us some of her work and awards, offered us sage tea.  We met her husband, chatted for a bit and then headed back home.  It was a delightful day.

Then it was back home to pack and get ready for my long trip home.