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| Radio Maria Pilgrimage 2018 Holy Land Br. Miguel, Ann, Fr. Emilio, Ingrid, Mary, Kristal, myself, Kathie, Robert, Donna, Jennifer, Tony, Angel, Maria (Photo taken by Tony's friend Karkash with Ingrid's camera) |
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| A general map of the Holy Places in and around the Old City of Jerusalem http://www.crystalinks.com/jerusalem.html |
Incidentally, its location right on the edge of the Christian Quarter faces directly toward the Muslim Quarter, which has led to it being shot at in the frequent times of tension. Not smart -- Tony shoots back!
Once again, there was a courtyard containing plaques of the Our Father in the various languages of the world. In this case, there were more than could be contained in a single courtyard, and plaques were in smaller nooks and crannies here, there, and yonder, to the tune (I believe) of 178! Tony explained why he believes that Jesus would have taught the Our Father to the disciples in Hebrew rather than, as commonly believed, in Aramaic -- and read it to us in Hebrew; in a different area, he pointed out that Chaldean, one of the world's oldest language that is still spoken although he said it would likely be a dead language within twenty or thirty years, is placed directly opposite one of the world's newest languages -- English -- and proceeded to read the Chaldean to us!
Leaving there, most of us purchased olive sprigs and palm fronds from a young man recommended by Tony.
Proceeding a little further down, we entered the expansive Jewish cemetery. The Mount of Olives is a coveted place of burial because the Jews do expect that when the Messiah comes, those buried on the Mount of Olives will be resurrected first.
The spot also provides a wonderful view of the Old City. Tony got one of his friends -- a seller of scarves whom he had already recommended we buy from, and we would, albeit later -- to use Ingrid's camera to take what would be our official group photo, at the top of this post. There were also a number of individual and smaller-group photos taken, including:
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| Three Amigos -- Br. Miguel, Fr. Emilio, and myself (Photo from Ingrid) |
That was very near the Church of Dominus Flevit, "the Lord wept":
As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."
And when he drew near and saw the city he wept [flevit] over it, saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation." (Luke 19: 37-44)
The church is very new, built by the Franciscan Custody in the 1950s on a traditional site associated with the event, where hitherto there had been a small chapel. This is the other Catholic church in Israel oriented toward the west, this time across the Kidron valley toward Jerusalem, because that is the direction Jesus was facing, toward the Temple. The teardrop shape evokes the tears of Christ. While digging the foundations remains were found that inspired a wholesale excavation of the site, which unearthed ancient Canaanite as well as more recent Byzantine tombs and a Byzantine monastery, the latter containing mosaic floors incorporated into the church. In the altar is a mosaic roundel of a hen and her chicks, surrounded by the words, “IERVSALEM IERVSALEM QVOTIES VOLVI CONGREGARE FILIOS TVOS QVEMADMODVM GALLINA CONGREGAT PVLLOS SVOS SVB ALAS,” “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have wanted to gather your children like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,” recalling another lament over Jerusalem:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Luke 13: 34)
Behind the altar, a great picture window incorporating a host-and-chalice design gives a panoramic view of the city.
... None of which did we see. We had been told we would have Mass at 10:30 inside the church. Unfortunately, as we arrived, I overheard Tony tell Padre that priority is given to larger groups and that our small group was bumped into an adjacent outdoor chapel (there seemed to be two). Padre's theme was, as usual, that Jesus came here -- knowing what was about to happen to him. "He suffered and he cried here in this place. ... One of those tears is for you. ... Let us be thankful to God for the blessings He has given us here in the Holy Land."
In a large courtyard adjacent to the Church of Dominus Flevit overlooking the city, Tony described what we could see from the Mount of Olives: from the earliest Jebusite city which became the City of David at left, in the south; across to the great extension of Mount Moriah created by Herod the Great which became the Temple Mount, now dominated by the Muslim Dome of the Rock shining brilliantly golden -- beyond which could be seen the grey domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the walled-up Golden Gate through which (an earlier incarnation of course, since the present walls date only from the 16th century) Jesus passed on Palm Sunday, through which the Jews believe the Messiah will arrive when he comes and Christians believe Jesus will arrive when he comes again -- for which reason the gate has been repeatedly walled up, even by Suleiman the Magnificent shortly after rebuilding the walls with an open gate!; to St. Stephen's Gate through which the first martyr was dragged out into the northern part of the Kidron Valley and stoned to death. We could also see, further down the slope of the Mount of Olives, such other landmarks as the golden spires of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Mary Magdalene.
We continued our walk down to the bottom of the Mount of Olives at Gethsemane, the "place of the olive press" -- the garden to which Our Lord retreated after the Last Supper, where he suffered the agony of knowing every detail of his coming Passion, where he would be arrested by the Temple Guard, betrayed by Judas. Most
of the trees from which the Mount of Olives takes its name are long gone,
victims of various wars through the centuries starting with the Romans – who
pitched their camps there during the Jewish War and cut down every tree. So
although it is often said that some of the trees here in a small enclosed garden are “witness trees,” that
is, that they witnessed Jesus’ agony in the garden forty years earlier, that’s
probably not the case … for the most part. 
On the other hand, olive trees are
among the longest-lived trees there are, and can grow back after being cut down
to their roots, so it would not be surprising if one of these trees’ progenitor
did stand here in mute witness ca. AD
30 or 33 when God Himself willingly took upon Himself the sins of the world, becoming
as the Scapegoat of Yom Kippur. 
Immediately adjacent is the Church of All Nations inside of which is the Rock of the Agony, the spot where Jesus prayed that if possible the cup of his coming Passion might pass from him. Built in 1924, financed by contributions from many nations around the world and incorporating design elements from the earlier Byzantine church, the Romanesque facade with its great triangular mosaic has become one of the most oft-photographed landmarks in Jerusalem. The interior design purposely evokes the darkness and gloom of that Holy Thursday night two thousand years ago.
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| The Rock of the Agony in the Garden |
From there it was only a short walk to where our bus could pick us up to take us to lunch, at the Notre Dame Center, a Vatican property in Jerusalem. Part of the complex is a hotel (which Steve Ray's pilgrims use). Flanking the lobby were two establishments to eat in, a restaurant at left and a buffet at right. Somehow Kristal and I got separated from the group -- we went through the buffet line then could not find them in that area. Tony and Wael, our driver, were there, and waved us over to their table, where we had a very nice visit.
Part of the Notre Dame Centre is a permanent Shroud Exhibit which several of us went into with Fr. Emilio, who gave an explanation of the image on the shroud and how perfectly -- and graphically -- it testifies to the sufferings of Our Lord as described in the Gospels.
After lunch and that short exhibit, the bus took us back to a location near the northern gate of the eastern wall, variously named "Lion's," "St. Stephen's," "Sheep," etc. The walk to the actual gate went through a Muslim graveyard, which was not nearly so well taken care of as the immaculate Jewish Cemetery.
Entering that particular gate took us into the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. The Old City – which is not contiguous with the city of Jerusalem as it was in the time of Jesus, but rather as it developed in the later Middle Ages and more recent centuries, is (very) roughly a square, roughly oriented squarely north-south-east-west, and divided culturally, religiously, and even historically into four unequal quarters – with the Temple Mount cutting into the eastern two quarters. The Muslim Quarter is in the northeast, then clockwise there are the Jewish Quarter (the smallest) in the southeast, the Armenian Quarter where my friend Angel Kitishian grew up in the southwest, and the generically-named Christian Quarter in the northwest. The present Old City is shifted north from the city 2000 years ago, when Mount Zion and the City of David, presently outside the walls (which are largely of Ottoman construction) to the south were within the city while much of the Christian and Muslim Quarters were outside the city to the north. Most obviously, of course, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, now in the heart of the Christian Quarter, was at that time outside the walls.
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| Image from Holylandmark.com |
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| Photo from Ingrid |
The idea that this church, just north of the location of the Temple Mount, was in fact the birthplace of Mary engendered a bit of debate among our number, given the fact that Luke places her in Nazareth at the time of the Annunciation thirteen to fifteen years later. I for one have no problem with the tradition. Michael Hesemann, in his Mary of Nazareth, makes a strong case based on ancient tradition recorded in the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew that Our Lady may well have been born here, in the shadow of the Temple.
This church is famed for its acoustics. Another group was there and a small group did a beautiful rendition of, I believe, the Te Deum. Once they were out, I was privileged to chant the Salve Regina along with Padre Emilio; Kathie and I were discussing getting the group together since most of them knew it when Padre, without being party to our hushed conversation, appeared and started chanting so I joined in. Great minds obviously think alike. Although I didn't perceive it at the time, the video sounds like others joined in as well. And the acoustics were indeed awesome, especially then and there, in the moment.
Video from Kristal
A little later, just before we left, I stood right on top of the star between myself and Padre, and chanted one Non Nobis Domine -- and that was indeed, as I'd read, the sweet spot. Unfortunately, I got no recording.
Not far from St. Anne's can be seen the remains of the Pool of Bethesda, renowned as where Jesus healed on the Sabbath:
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water: whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your pallet, and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked.
Now
that day was the sabbath. ... (John 5: 1-9)
Of course, Jesus healing on the Sabbath was, to the Jewish authorities, worse than the sick man's lifetime of suffering which Jesus alleviated.
What is now called the Lion's Gate or St. Stephen's Gate was then called the Sheep Gate, because the market for procuring sheep for the Temple sacrifices was just beyond it. I did not walk down to see this pool, however, instead using up all my time in St. Anne's Church. Those who did so saw the following:
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| Photo from Ingrid |
From St. Anne's we went a short distance to begin the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, and extended walk of about a quarter mile which is obviously not a "site" per se, but rather a route through the narrow streets of the Muslim Quarter into the Christian Quarter, with various individual locations traditionally associated with the the Stations of the Cross marked by placards on the walls of buildings.
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| Image from PlanetWare.com |
It is not a dedicated way, by which I mean that the streets are part of the everyday life of the Old City, with all the hustle and bustle of the inhabitants going about their business even as we made our way along it. Businesses, markets, and so forth open directly onto the streets. It is as if a way were marked through the middle of Natchitoches and we were able to walk it devotionally -- which we do, of course, every Good Friday -- but without the police blocking traffic for us and with considerably narrower streets and greater crowds than we experience back home. As millions, at least, through history have done, however, we stopped, meditated, and prayed at each Station -- "We adore you Oh Christ, and we bless you, because by your Cross you have redeemed the world...."
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| Photo from Ingrid |
[Here follows a video from Youtube, of a different group -- not ours -- following the Via Dolorosa in the early morning of 04 Apr 2017]
Proceeding through the narrow streets of the Muslim Quarter, into the Christian Quarter, we ultimately arrived at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, called the holiest place in Christendom. The last five of the fourteen Stations are inside that massive church, which encompasses what remains of the mount of Calvary as well as the Tomb in which Jesus "was crucified, died, and was buried ... On the third day, he rose again from the dead..." (The Apostles' Creed"). The sites of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are really within just a few yards of each other (contrary to most people’s
mental image), and all beneath one roof within the walls of this great church.
It is pretty much as certain as certain can be, historically speaking, that this is indeed the site of Golgotha/Calvary and the Tomb. It was revered as such from a very early period – at least the 2nd c., when according to the early church historian Eusebius the Roman Emperor Hadrian built a temple dedicated to the goddess Venus atop the site to preempt Christian worship there. Two hundred years later, the first Christian Emperor Constantine the Great ordered the temple to be replaced by a church – during which construction his mother, St. Helena, is said to have rediscovered the tomb and the True Cross. In the process of the construction, much of the rock of Calvary and around the tomb was removed in order to isolate the two sites and level the ground. Constantine’s church (actually two adjacent chapels in one complex) was damaged by wars, attacks, and earthquakes through the subsequent centuries – the Persians in 614 when they captured and carried off the True Cross (recovered and restored by the Emperor Heraclius in 630 – the 14 September Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross), long centuries of Muslim rule from 638 – until 1009 when the Mad Caliph Al-Hakim ordered it destroyed completely, and helped set up the beginning of the Crusades by the end of the 11th c. despite a meager rebuilding negotiated by the Byzantine Emperor and Al-Hakim’s son at mid-century.
The current building is perhaps the greatest monument to the First Crusade, called in 1095 at least in part to restore the Holy Sepulchre. Their capture of Jerusalem on 15 July 1099 inaugurated most of a century, the 12th, of Christian rule over the Kingdom of Jerusalem. By 1187 when Saladin took the city, the great church as it exists today was more or less in place although there have been, of course, extensive repairs, renovations, and even expansions through the following centuries. Like the Basilica of the Nativity, management of the Holy Sepulchre is a complicated “cooperative” between religious communities – Catholic and multiple Orthodox – with even more jealously guarded claims, rights, and privileges given rise to sometimes ridiculous oddities such as the workman’s ladder which has stood in one place for over a century and a half because to remove it would violate one or the other denomination’s rights!
(As an aside, here too there is an “alternative,” however. Protestants generally prefer what is known as “the Garden Tomb” some distance away, “rediscovered” in the 19th century by British Major-General Charles Gordon – but no reputable scholar today, Catholic or Protestant, disputes the location of the Holy Sepulchre. Even the Protestant trust overseeing the Garden Tomb refrains from promoting it as the very site, rather emphasizing it as better representative of the site described in the Bible. Perhaps it is ... but it is not the spot.)
Inside the Holy Sepulchre, one can ascend to the top of Golgotha and the site of the Crucifixion and touch the actual rock; one can see the Stone of Unction, where Jesus’ body was laid out for hasty preparation before entombment; and view the Tomb, which was renovated to much fanfare within the past couple of years. But one cannot do those things quickly.... We were in the Church for a long time, and indeed our praying of the last five Stations of the Cross broke down simply because of the press of people, the bustle and the noise. There was no way for us to stay together as a group and pray. We did make our way in and up to the level where a small shrine encompassed a hole down which one could stick one's arm pretty much up to the elbow and touch the naked rock of Golgotha. The wait there was between a half and a full hour.
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| See the infamous ladder below the middle window? |
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| Photo from Ingrid |
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| Photo from Ingrid |
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| Photo from Ingrid |
Then, back down stairs we saw -- and touched -- the Stone of Unction, where the Blessed Mother and her companions washed and anointed His Body once it was taken down from the Cross.
Then we went into the main part of the church -- the Rotunda at the center of which is the small chapel, the Edicule, in which is the Tomb itself. The shelf on which His Body would have been lain is now covered by a marble slab, but we were allowed in to pray before it ... after a wait for well more than two hours. It was not a line; it was simple a mass of people pressing to get through a very small door for a few seconds in that holiest place in Christendom, where Our Lord was dead and rose again to life. It was hot; people were rude (especially a group of Russians, one woman of which kept pressing to push me out of the way, and when I pressed back to hold my place she looked at me and either hissed or spat; I looked back at her and said, "Pfft to you too!" Not my finest moment, but tempers were short all around. The line moved inches at a time, and stopped entirely twice, once when the Franciscans sang Vespers, I believe, and once to accommodate a group of Knights of the Holy Sepulchre who can show up unannounced and immediately be given precedence, private access to the tomb for thirty minutes. But Tony assured us we were actually lucky -- imagining the circuit of the Edicule as a clock with the entrance at 12:00, we began our wait at about 04:00; Tony said he had seen the "line" filling the Rotunda, extending out into the plaza and into the street, with a wait lasting many hours.
Note, at about 06:00 of the circuit was the entrance of a small Armenian chapel in which I lit (or rather had one of our number light, because there was no way I could maneuver my way there in the crowd!) the last of the many candles I set all across the Holy Land for my friend Angel and her family, as I had promised to do. Angel grew up in the Armenian Quarter.
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| Photo from Donna |
The wait was worth it. Being there in the Tomb was a profoundly moving experience although it lasted only a minute or so. A monk was moving pilgrims in and out in groups of five or six one after another, no nonsense. That was a thankless job, I'm sure! He allowed no pictures, but here is a shot I found on the Internet:
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| http://www.investingbb.com/sepulcher-tomb.html |
Exiting the Tomb, we were to gather in the courtyard. Passing by the Stone of Unction, the crowd had thinned considerably, and some of our number venerated it again without the hustle and bustle.
[An excellent overview of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with diagrams and high quality images of the 90% or so that we did not see can be found here: LINK]
Once we came out of the Church, we had initially been planned to walk across to the Western or "Wailing" Wall. Given the lateness of the hour -- it was past 19:00 -- the length of the walk, and Tony's advice, we ended up walking through the Christian Quarter and ultimately out the Jaffa Gate to meet our waiting bus, to be taken back to Bethlehem and our last night in the St. Gabriel Hotel. Along the way we passed by the Razzouk Tattoo Parlor; I asked Tony, "Is that the famous tattoo parlor?" He answered yes -- and that it was where he got his tattoos. At one time I had hoped, time allowing, to come away with a traditional pilgrim's tattoo of a Jerusalem Cross on my right wrist, but time did not allow. And once I got the Jerusalem Cross ring at the Nativity Souvenirs Co-op that was off the table anyway.
As we arrived back at the St. Gabriel, another bus was leaving a new group of pilgrims, a couple of dozen Ethiopians, and suddenly that hotel which had been very quiet got very busy, with a full buffet laid out for both parties, us and them.
After supper, Kristal and I took the opportunity to go down to the bar one last time to bid Tony farewell, although we did not order anything. Both of us had a lot of packing to do in order to get to bed at a decent hour, because we were told to have our suitcases outside our doors no later than 05:15 for a planned departure at 05:45.
And so ended, for all intents and purposes my (hopefully just the first) pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
+ + +
Here is an interesting little addendum, however. In the evening, as we packed, there was a flurry of posts of pictures going up on WhatsApp. Among them, Br. Miguel posted the following....
Br. Miguel says his mother did not paint that image -- rather, it started appearing very faintly, about a year after she presented it to his community. I believe what prompted him to share it with us was our short visit to the Shroud of Turin exhibit at the Notre Dame Center earlier in the day, and there is indeed a close resemblance between this image and that of the Shroud -- its coloring; its faint, ethereal nature; how it actually looks more clear to the eye if you do not look directly at it. But most of all, the features -- it is clearly the same face, but portrayed here in life rather than in death. As I understand it, the "apparition" has not been declared to be miraculous -- as yet. But it is under investigation by the Vatican. At this point, Miguel says, no natural explanation has been proposed for its appearance.
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