June 3, 2026

Fr. John Riccardo

This past week, I’ve been blessed to take part in a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Paul in Greece and Turkey. We’re still at sea as I write this, but so far we’ve retraced Paul’s footsteps as recorded by his missionary companion Luke in Acts 16-19. We have visited, prayed and celebrated Mass in Thessaloniki (Thessalonica in Paul’s day), Philippi, Berea, Kavala (Neapolis), and Ephesus. We’ve also stopped off at Patmos, where John wrote Revelation. There are about 100 of us, including two deacons, five priests, and a bishop. It’s been an extraordinary time of grace.

The highlights have been too numerous to count, and I’m sure we will be unpacking them in prayer for weeks and months to come. For many of us, though, what has stood out the most was a Mass we celebrated at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, about 75 yards from the Areopagus. This was the place where Paul stood before the Athenian court as recorded in Acts 17:16-32. It’s often thought that Paul was simply speaking to various leaders of the esteemed court, but it’s more likely that Paul was actually on trial. Luke records that some in the crowd, upon hearing him preach, “took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus” (Acts 17:19). The Greek word means to seize, or arrest. Paul isn’t giving a lecture, then; he’s defending himself and manages at the end to escape and leaves Athens for Corinth.

Paul would have been standing right in the area where we were celebrating Mass. Huge crowds of people would have been walking all around him and the court officials surrounding him, some stopping to look and listen, just as people were stopping and looking at our strange group of pilgrims, gathered around a makeshift altar in the sun.

As we were celebrating Mass I noticed a woman — not in our group — walk towards the area where the Bishop was standing. There was a small gate near him leading to a passageway and I thought she was simply looking for a way to walk through. She wasn’t, though. She was drawn to what she saw. Slowly, she inched closer and closer, watching, listening, focused on him, the action at the altar, and us who were gathered around him. It didn’t appear that she spoke English, but she clearly knew what was happening. She seemed to be praying, and when it came time for communion she jumped in line and received our Lord. It was impossible not to notice her, and all of us commented later in the day on what an experience it was to watch her watching us.

The next day, we celebrated Mass inside at the Cathedral in Athens, dedicated to St. Dionysius. Dionysius is one of the two people Luke calls out by name who responded to Paul’s preaching on the Areopagus (cf. Acts 17:34). It turns out Dionysius goes on to become the first bishop in Athens.

I keep thinking about the similarity, perhaps, between the woman who heard us and Dionysius, who heard Paul. Dionysius had literally never heard of Jesus before that day, or at least before Paul came to Athens some weeks before. He woke up that day thinking it was going to be just another day, with more cases to be heard in the Areopagus. He certainly didn’t expect the trajectory of his entire life was about to change. He had grown up in an pagan culture, “having no hope and without God,” as Paul would write to the Ephesians (Eph 2:12). But suddenly, just as the sun scatters the darkness at dawn, the darkness of hopelessness apart from the God who is love and has made Himself known in Jesus was scattered as he heard the extraordinary news of the gospel proclaimed.

I have no idea what the life of faith is like for that woman who joined us at the foot of the Acropolis. She might be far holier than I am and a daily communicant, for all I know. Or maybe what she saw brought her back to the faith of her youth. I do know this, though. Each day, we meet people who are like Dionysius, or perhaps that woman. They are either living the nightmare that is life apart from God, or have walked away from the faith of their youth. And I know, you know, what they are looking for. They’re looking for God. This is because the human heart and mind is wired for God. “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord,” St. Augustine once famously wrote, “and our hearts are restless, and always will be restless until one day they rest in Thee.”

When Augustine says that God has “made us” for Himself, he means that are hearts are created in such a way that we are inclined towards God, we crave God, we hunger for God — even if we don’t know it. He is what we’re looking for in all the various searches for joy and happiness and peace that we all go through.

So, let’s call upon the intercession of St. Paul this week, and the intercession of St. Dionysius, that we might be attentive to those seemingly just standing around us, but who are longing for the gospel. And let us be intentional about sharing with the the difference Jesus has made in our lives.

You Never Know Who’s Listening

Just Love

Carrying You With Us On Pilgrimage