Last month Friends of Saxum Italy took part in the 9th annual Jerusalem Marathon as part of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Last month Friends of Saxum Italy took part in a most original trip to the Holy Land – combining a traditional pilgrimage experience with the 9th annual Jerusalem Marathon. Some pilgrims on the morning of Friday, March 15, ran a range of distances as part of the marathon, with their Saxum bib-numbers on display on the streets of Jerusalem!
Joining 30 thousand participants from around the world, the pilgrim-runners had the chance to take part in a unique race that combines a great sporting event with views and emotions that only Jerusalem and its 3000 years of history can give. While some of the group enjoyed the holy city while running along its streets, all 40 pilgrims for a week experienced the extraordinary experience of a journey of faith on the roads of this land of our Lord: starting from Haifa and Nazareth, with various stops in Galilee, continuing south into the desert of Judah and finally arriving in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
Giorgio Zennaro, a pilgrim-runner from Milan, commented: “I wanted to run with the same spirit of the first marathon, the historic one, of the Athenians who wanted to bring a message to Sparta and so I too felt like a messenger: so this way, I’ll go back to my work place with the idea of bringing Christ, a bit like St. Christopher, who bore Christ according to the story.” So in the end, Friends of Saxum Italy concluded that The Jerusalem Marathon and a pilgrimage to the Holy Land form a perfectly successful combination and an experience they are likely to repeat! For more information about pilgrimages being planned by Friends of Saxum Italy, check out their website.