Gallicantu

“Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him.” Luke 22:61.

Sunday we hiked up Mount Zion.  Cresting the eastern ridge you come to where the house of the High Priest would have been in Jesus’ day.  Here would be the first part of Jesus’ arrest and condemnation: after being captured in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was brought by night to Caiaphas’ house, where his impromptu trial began under cover of darkness.

Still extant today are the underground pits in the area used as prisons: you can still see the holes in the stones where chains were attached.  Here Jesus is believed to have been held as they waited for morning to take him to Pilate.

Our site for Mass, then, was the same place that Peter had followed Jesus, wanting to remain close to him, but ended by denying him while warming himself by the fire.

The church, bearing the mark of the rooster, preserves its memory in its name, Gallicantu.

A sweeping view toward the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives opens from the hillside there.

Archeological digs have uncovered the original stones of 2,000 years ago that made the road coming up from the direction of the Mount of Olives.

The Gospel of today’s Mass held Jesus’ warning that where he is going, his listeners cannot come.  Peter had tried to go with Jesus, but the rooster’s crow drove home how miserably he had failed.  Peter’s tears, commemorated at this hillside church, show the devastation at seeing the door to Christ slammed shut by weakness.  But at the same time those tears reconfirm that with Christ no door must remain closed when we allow him to reopen them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos courtesy of Father Johnson.

Coming to Town

If you were planning on visiting the Holy Land in May you're in good company.

Vatican Information Services released the Pope's itinerary for Jordan and Israel Thursday. From May 8th through the 15th, he'll be diving into the whirlwind of activity that marks papal visits. Incorporating sites that any pilgrim would want to visit, he will also be going to Caritas Baby Hospital and the Aida Refugee Camp, as well as meeting, among others, with Muslim, Jewish and Greek Orthodox leaders, and the standard secular politicians.

Included in his Masses (which gather masses) is a liturgy at the Valley of Josaphat, so tune in and get a free preview of the staging ground for the Last Judgment.

Climb Every Mountain

One of the readily available ones being the Mount of Olives, watching over the city of Jerusalem.

Our trek upwards two weeks ago was an apt preparation for this next week, bringing us to the church at Bethphage, where the procession for Palm Sunday begins.  Here the Gospels narrate Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, while the disciples and crowds of others greeted him as the son of David.

 

Inside the church is a large stone which holds the tradition of being where Jesus climbed on to ride down the hill—today covered in medieval frescoes.

 

Continuing from there we headed toward Bethany and Lazarus’ tomb, but to get there we had to pass the wall barricading off the West Bank from Jerusalem.

 

Delayed in completion, the wall runs through the towns of the hilltop, creating problems often solved by bulldozer.

Some walls have had other causes for deterioration.

 

 

The church at Bethany commemorates the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and is adjacent to his tomb.

 

Today’s church built in the ‘50’s follows on the crusaders’ church, which was built on still earlier sanctuaries.

Announcement

The event took place in Nazareth, but included in the global commemorations today was a liturgy celebrated at the Armenian Catholic Church in Jerusalem.

Nine months before Jesus’ birth the Solemnity of the Annunciation is celebrated, when the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that reality has changed, and God is becoming a human being.  Mary accepts the role of being his mother, and 2,000 years later her response is still the gift of joy to everyone.

20 years isn’t quite as long a time, but that would be how long ago it was that I came into the Catholic Church with my family.  That year March 25 fell on the Easter Vigil, so we should celebrate twice, marking both the date and the day.

The Armenian church in Jerusalem was also commemorating a milestone today: this liturgy marked the beginning of Perpetual Adoration being held in their church.

The site is appropriate both for celebrating the Annunciation and for Eucharistic Adoration.  Alongside on the Via Crucis, it is located at the Fourth Station, remembering where Jesus met his mother on the way to Calvary.  That meeting could only take place because they had first been brought together at the Annunciation—and today we still join Mary in encountering her son.

The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem were present.

  

Dozens of priests joined to concelebrate in the packed church.  Presiding was the Papal Nuncio, who was accompanied by an Armenian Catholic bishop from the United States as well as several other bishops; the Patriarch of Jerusalem was also present.

The photos and the following video were taken by my classmate Father Johnson.  The film gives you a glimpse of the interior of the church and lets you hear the choir, which did an outstanding  job.  Their music, and the liturgy as a whole, was one of the most polylinguistic events I’ve been to in a while: Latin, Armenian, Italian, English, Polish and Arabic all played a role.

Going Green

Before you play Little League you learn how to swing a bat by playing T-ball.  Instead of a pitcher winging a ball at you, it's suspended on a little post over home plate while you work at knocking it out of the park.

Coverage of Catholicism mimics the sport all too often as the Church is bashed back into the Stone Age over its vision of sexuality and its teaching on condoms.

The Catholic Church, this message trumpets, has spread the AIDS virus throughout Africa by contradicting the experts and clinging to a lethal ritualism that cripples medical insight.

Except medical insight doesn't agree with the coverage.

A little gig called the AIDS Prevention Research Project from the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies decided to take a look at what raises or lowers HIV-infection rates, and found that the darling vision of popular assumption crashes in the face of the evidence.  The Church's reviled stance, in contrast, reflects the most effective response to the epidemic.

In a recent interview with NRO, Edward Green, director of the Harvard AIDS project and author of Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries, gave the shocking confirmation: "The pope is correct . . . or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope's comments," referring to the widely publicized comments of Benedict XVI on his way to Africa.

A great synopsis of Benedict's comments is found at LifeSiteNews: make your way over to this article to read more and to catch a glimpse of the on-the-ground reality that the T-ballers have never seen.

Raindrops

The weather was appropriate for our Sunday liturgy a week ago: for the 3rd Sunday of Lent we were hiking up the Mount of Olives to Dominus Flevit, commemorating the site where Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

With the gentle rain coming down, we were all a little wet by the time we’d passed through the Old City.

On the western slope of the mountain, the church has a beautiful view of Jerusalem.

Its distinctive shape commemorates the teardrops of one who looked out at that same panorama (Luke 19:41-44).

The church’s interior is oriented toward the city.

Though the altar of the much older original structure faced toward the east.

The sun would return in later days, but the day’s increasing rain, motivating a hot chocolate run on our return, matched the theme of our pilgrimage.

Masada

Imagine you’re on top of the world.

Now imagine that world is entirely desert.

You’ve just put yourself in Masada.

Add a palace and you’re King Herod, who had a knack for putting palaces just about everywhere. 

On the same day we journeyed to En Gedi, we made it to the rocky fortress of Masada.  It was first made war-worthy by the Hasmonean kings after the revolt of the Maccabees, then polished up by Herod, and finally, in its history-making moment, made a last refuge by Jewish rebels when Jerusalem was completely destroyed.

Google Maps has a surprisingly detailed aerial image; even more fun is downloading Google Earth and visually flying over the site.

View Larger Map

Three years of Roman siege and another 1900 plus of weathering don’t do much for palaces: your general decorating style today is monochromatic.

You can still see some of the regal trappings, though the rebels, and monks during the Byzantine era, didn’t feel the need to maintain the original layout.

The synagogue is still visible.

 

The friendly mammal phenomenon continues even on top of the world.

With a place like Masada, numbers are key.  Specifically, the number eight, which was the number of Roman camps that surrounded the mountain during the X Legion’s unrelenting siege.

Finally, the Roman’s took the fortress by building an earthen ramp that reached clear up to the mountain top.  Above as well you can see the white stripe to the upper left of the map photo.

 

This is where Masada entered the history books.  Throughout their history, Roman legions took many cities and many sites in the unstoppable tide of the Empire.  But here they encountered a different opponent.  When Lucius Flavius Silva breached the wall with his troops, he found the defendants had torched their stores, and dispatched themselves to the last man.  Josephus in recording the account tells of two women who hid with several children and survived the mass suicide: they recounted how the rebels had preferred death to slavery at the hands of the Romans.

Kid You Not

Last Thursday our expeditions took us to the beautiful region of Ein Gedi, about an hour or so southeast of Jerusalem (as usual, I fell asleep on the drive down, so couldn’t give you an accurate chronology).

This beautiful oasis was known for the cultivation of balsam, while the Song of Songs refers to its vineyards.  Ezekiel speaks of it as a site of fishing, while Sirach raises the bar and says that Wisdom is ‘like a palm tree in En-Gedi’ (24: 14).

Palm trees we found and adventure besides as we made the grueling trek into the heights to find the chronicled spring.  Follow along in this stunning video that will bring you firsthand into the wilderness above the Dead Sea.

Rabbis of Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Post published this article Thursday following a visit to Pope Benedict of a delegation from Israel's Chief Rabbinate.  Sparked by concerns following the lifting of an excommunication on Lefebvrist bishop Williamson, the encounter confirmed the importance of Jewish relations with the Holy See.  Haifa Chief Rabbi She'ar-Yashuv Cohen noted that: "This was not just another meeting.  This was . . . a turning point, the end of a crisis. We could not have expected a warmer reception."

Going for Baroque

Jerusalem is a city that remains full of surprises.  Last week the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra presented Bach’s Johannes Passion in a beautiful rendition that showcased instruments and technique of his era.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One could be surprised that Baroque music is performed in Jerusalem.

One could be surprised at the timing of the piece, it working out that the Passion was presented during our season of Lent.

One could be surprised that a Jewish community put on a piece that speaks of a Christian savior and could be understood as censuring the Jews.

It certainly is a unique experience to be able to picture each events’ location as they are being sung about, and know they lie just a short distance away.

And it was unique to hear Johannes Passion sung in an audience hall sprinkled with kippas, performed by Jewish artists.

Music Director David Shemer took up the question of incongruity in the program notes for the evening, asking if the text or composition are anti-Semitic.  He gives a perspective that provides insight into the text:

The choral pieces and the arias testify that Bach conceived the Passion stories not only as representing historical events, but also and mainly as a drama that takes place in the heart of the believer.  Therefore that blood-thirsty mob which wants Jesus’ head are not necessarily the Jews of Bach’s time and not the historical persons of the first century C.E., rather they are the abstract, almost allegorical figures who represent the forces of evil that are inherent in the believer.

For us who pray John’s Gospel today, the account of Christ’s sacrifice is meant to engage and confront us, and not simply be deflected onto others.

It is accomplished!

What comfort for all suffering souls!

The hero from Judah triumphs in his might

and brings the strife to an end.

It is accomplished!

To Build Bridges

"At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint."

Earlier this week Pope Benedict XVI responded to the flurry of responses to his lifting the excommunication of four Lefebvrist bishops. At the outset, the surfacing of one of the bishop's denial of the Holocaust fanned questions about the Vatican's intention toward the Jewish community, till, as Benedict notes, voices from within the Jewish community pointed out the absurdity of that position.

Benedict's letter, however, provides insight as well into the path the Church is called to take today. He writes: "In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses "to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen."

He continues: "A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God."

I'd love to keep on quoting, but you're better off going to the source. One final line: "Whoever proclaims that God is Love "to the end" has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity."

Taking to the Streets

I saw Zorro yesterday.

That was right after I had run into one of the Seven Dwarves—though his parents appeared quite young considering how white his beard was.

Which was before Winnie the Pooh almost ran into me as he came careening across the square.

Most of all yesterday I saw princesses.  Mixed in with the angels, butterflies, clowns and Mickey Mouses (plural—so: Mice?), princesses were everywhere.

Jerusalem celebrated Purim yesterday, and similar to our Carnival, costumes spill out onto the street.  Commemorating the deliverance of the Jewish people from destruction through the bravery of Queen Esther, this Jewish feast brings to life many of her younger sisters.

One of the other traditions of the day is the reading of the book of Esther, with cheering whenever her name is read, and a cacophony of noise whenever Haman the villain's name is read, attempting to drown out even the hearing of it.

The book of Esther, coincidentally, was the only book of the Jewish Bible not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, so this feast partially makes up for that absence.

Night at the Sepulcher

This was last night.  Extraordinary.

Got back at 6:00 am.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem enshrines both Golgotha and the Lord’s tomb.  During certain times of the year, you can remain in the church all night.  And on the Second Sunday of Lent, it was all night: 8 of us arrived late Saturday night, and services were ongoing from then until we left in the morning.

This video gives a glimpse of the church and some of the ceremonies; unfortunately it doesn’t include our own Mass at Calvary at the end of the night just before 5:00 am.

Walls of Jericho

Joshua found Jericho to be a well defended city.

Security has changed a little since then . . .

We went through two check points to get into the city of Jericho as we made our way there from Qumran last Thursday. Happily this time through didn’t require full ID checks as they just waved us through, but we had been carrying our passports to be ready.

Herod was a big fan of Jericho so he built one of his many palaces there. Our first stop on the south side of town was the remains of his first century complex.

He actually built two structures on both sides of the wadi (ravine, except when it has rained, then it’s a torrent) and connected them with a sprawling bridge.

The bridge is gone, but the wadi’s still there:

With enough moisture for a few plants:

Our visit brought out Herod’s latter-day neighbors. One of our Capuchin’s O.F.M. Franciscan’s beards proved to be curious enough to feel—and to smell . . .

The oldest synagogue found in Israel is just up the hill.

Currently it’s not in use.

Come Round

To Qumran.



Thursday was our expedition to the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The spot is very much Dead Sea-ish: dry, desolate and abandoned. And even more abandoned until 1947, when a Bedouin boy was winging rocks up into the cliffs while herding goats, and heard a clay jar shatter inside one of the caves. Climbing up into the cavern, he made one of the greatest archeological-Biblical discoveries of the 20th century. Preserved in the dry climate for 2,000 years were parchment and papyrus scrolls with the books of the Old Testament. Up till then our oldest copies of the books of the Old Testament had dated back to about the 9th century. These texts, which amazingly almost completely matched our much later texts, were almost a thousand years older, confirming the fidelity with which the Bible had been handed down.

Four caves were ultimately located with parchments kept inside; at the base of the cliffs ruins were uncovered which appeared to be of an early Essene community, a group contemporaneous with Christ who would have treasured and protected the Biblical texts.



One of the distinctive elements of this Jewish group was the emphasis on spiritual purity, manifested through ritual baths repeated throughout the day.

Thus the many pools like the following:



The Romans annihilated Jerusalem, about 15 miles from Qumran, in the year 70. As the legionnaires continued their rampage through Palestine, it's thought that the Essene community hid their library up in the hills, where they remained untouched till the present.

Cave 4, where some of the scrolls were discovered.

A friend asked if Sea Scrolls were like Sea Cucumbers. To assist in distinguishing the two, I have included a photo of a sea cucumber encountered at the Barrier Reef last August.



Setting of the Dead Sea Scrolls:



Note the difference of environment.

Carmel in the House of Bread

A quick trip to Bethlehem last Tuesday afternoon brought two of us to the Carmelite Convent where we were picking up stoles.

Bethlehem. You can see the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church on the skyline.

The Carmel in Bethlehem was built in the late 1800's by Sister Marie of Jesus Crucified. A contemporary of St. Therese of Lisieux, Mariam Baouardy was Arabic. Her throat was slit as a young teenager when she wouldn't convert to Islam from the Catholicism of her parents; she later recounted being cared for by a 'blue nun' whom she recognized to be the Virgin Mary, who nursed her back to life and brought her to a church. For the rest of her life, Mariam had an intimate sense of the supernatural world.

"The Little Arab", a blessed whose cause is up for canonization, had already been sent to found a convent in Mangalore, India, before returning to work tirelessly to build a new community on David's hill. A worksite injury brought her death at the age of 33.



The Carmelite sisters living there today seek to preserve Mariam's vision of Bethlehem as 'a house of peace and joy'. Immersing themselves in prayer, they manifest Mariam's words:

"Everyone is sleeping. And God, so full of goodness, so great, so worthy of praises, is forgotten!… no one thinks of Him!… See, nature praises Him; the sky, the stars, the trees, the grass, everything praises Him; and man, who knows his kindness, who should be praising Him, is sleeping!… Let us go and wake the universe up!"

True Pole of the Earth

You wouldn't want to lose your head over the walls surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem, but apparently its designers did. Built quite recently by Sultan Suleiman in 1537-1540, the account has him executing the architects for not including Mount Zion inside the perimeter.

Mount Moriah, site of the temple, and Mount Zion were inside the walls of first century Jerusalem refortified by King Herod. Golgotha was just outside the walls on the northwest side. Suleiman's wall which stands today, incorporates Mount Calvary and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but leaves the Upper Room and King David's tomb outside on top of Mount Zion.

We hiked up there last week to celebrate Sunday Mass in the Franciscan church of the
Cenacle, immediately adjacent to the site of the Upper Room.



The Crusaders built a chapel to honor the site of the Upper Room; immediately adjacent is the Benedictine church revered as the site of Mary's dormition. The ancient church of Hagia Maria Sion stood on this site, while the current church was built at the beginning of the 20th century.



Down in the crypt you find a grotto with a statue of Mary in her final rest. On the ceiling, not visible in this photo, you have six prominent women of the Old Testament: Eve, Miriam, Jael, Esther, Judith, and Ruth.