A journey together to the Holy Land enabled Catholics and Anglicans to focus on what unites them as Christians as well as what still divides them

It took the best part of two years to prepare for our ecumenical pilgrimage to the Holy Land: securing dates in diaries, putting in place the partnerships we would need to make it as fruitful a pilgrimage as possible, and considering some of the challenges that we would face as Anglicans and Roman Catholics worshipping and witnessing together. The best pilgrimages bring people together, not only to deepen their individual faith but to strengthen their communion with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. It was when we were finally side by side on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Galilee that we began to realise all that the Holy Spirit was achieving within us.

As Archbishop of Birmingham and Bishop of Worcester, we have overlapping pastoral responsibilities in Worcestershire and Dudley in the Black Country, and we have worked together on several ecumenical projects over the last seven years. Our Holy Land pilgrimage emerged from the shared experience of coming together as Christians around the Word of God in Scripture. Every other year, with our Free Church colleagues, we have been co-leading a “Big Bible Study Day” at Worcester Cathedral. Here, close to the resting place of St Wulstan, we wanted to allow the Scripture to draw us closer to Christ and so to one another through Lectio Divina and Ignatian meditation on the Word of God. A growing number of Friends of the Holy Land, present in many Anglican and Catholic parishes in Worcestershire and Dudley, supported these days as well.