AILMENT, ANYONE?

Early in the morning we all motored to Pergamon where we visited the ruins of the biggest of the Seven Churches, also known as the Red Salon dedicated to the gods of Egypt. We climbed the Acropolis which was adorned with several Temples: That of Dionicious and that of Adriamus, both no longer there but at some museums.

At the Agora where at the center used to stand the statue of Augustus and Hemet, gods of tourists and of commerce respectively. The famous altar of Zeus was now in Berlin Museum. There was also a big theater.

We also visited the Asklepion, an important health center of antiquity. There, was a sacred spring that still gave off fresh cold mineral water said to be curative. We were told the legend of the two snakes as symbols of Aescolapious. It was a story about a rich person who was rejected at the medical center as they thought he was dying anyway. On the way out at the Via Sagrada he saw two snakes moving towards a cup of medicine but when the snakes drunk the content they died of poisoning but when the sick person drank it he was cured.

At one side of the Temple of Telesporos, the son of Aescolapious, we were shown the different sections where healing took place. Underneath were several compartments where relaxation (and finally healing) of patients took place.

It was an ancient belief that snakes don’t die. They just changed their skin every year. Following the belief was the building of this relaxation compartments underground so the patient felt the underground life of the snake .

On our way to Pergamon we were all happy exchanging jokes. On our way back we all took a nap then passed by the biggest mall of Izmir.

Mass at 6:30 p.m. After t he Gospel, Fr. Dennis gave time for sharing . I was the first one to stand up saying that way back home I was the speaker of the house and that what I was going to say was sort of a conjugal sharing.

I want ed to share many things but I didn’t want to dominate t he situation, so I just mentioned how God touched us by using small incidents to tell us His message. I told them that being away from the family for the first time, we realized that we should love our family with all our heart; comparing our country with the progress of the countries we visited, our country appeared pitiful. We realized that we should love our country with all our strength.

Having been exposed to different religious beliefs like the Ultra Orthodox Jews, the Islam and others, we realized that we should love our religion with all our soul. But after following the footsteps of Jesus we realized even further that we should love God with all our mind, with all our heart, with all our strength and with all our soul.

The group called me Father Abraham as a result of that action song about Father Abraham that I introduced during our cruise to the Golden Horn.
The next morning I was also the life of the party inside the bus on our way to Pergamon. I shared some of my religious and funny songs as well as my green, brown and divine jokes.

It was a terribly tire some day but a very fruitful one indeed. We were all dead tired that we all slept like a log..