Saturday 18 August -- 2018 Holy Land Day 6: Bethlehem and Mount Zion

Again, ignore the
distance and time stamp

I got up a little after 06:30 for 07:15 breakfast. It was a little more modest than the Ron Beach Hotel, but, again, our group are the only people currently staying in the Saint Gabriel Hotel. There was no ginormous buffet, but a good spread was right there on our tables, with coffee, cereals, and breads available in a corner of the buffet room.

At 08:15 we went to the Religious Articles Co-op, Bethlehem Nativity Souvenirs
, that we had by that time heard so much about. Tony explained more about how it came to be. It was a 2009 project spearheaded by the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, in which Nativity Pilgrimages has participated from the beginning. 64 Bethlehemite families participate in the co-op, rather than competing against each other with smaller religious articles shops individually too small to survive. It gives jobs to young Christian Bethlehemites for whom there is virtually no other opportunity in the increasingly Muslim-dominated city. It is essential to the survival of the Christian community in Bethlehem, and must be supported. We certainly did that!

Kristal's sister wanted a Nativity....

 I don't know how long we spent in there. It was a huge showroom, a bit overwhelming. By far and away the most impressive sight was a huge quantity of obviously high-quality, individually hand-carved articles made from olive-wood. I do not know for certain, but am as sure as anything that the people who appear at my home Basilica just about every year are from this group. And there was much more than just the olive-wood -- scads of jewelry, icons, and all kinds of other products. I ended up spending way more money than I ever anticipated I would.... I take consolation that it went to a good cause.

(Here's an oddity: When I was making up my map for the day, I tried to include Bethlehem Nativity Souvenirs. Google Maps would not find it; it would find other souvenir shops, but not this one. What does that mean...?)

Here's an interesting story: Yesterday evening, when we arrived at the St. Gabriel Hotel in Bethlehem, one of the ladies among our number missed her walled, which she had been carrying with her throughout the pilgrimage thus far. She had no specific memory of when she last had it in hand, other than that she had it at lunch when she paid for her meal. We knew where we had been that day since, so with Tony's help inquiries were made backtracking along the way. At some point either later in the evening or early the next morning, the wallet was reported found -- with all money and cards still enclosed -- at the Church of St. Peter in Jaffa. Some kind soul had found it in a pew there and turned it in to the religious who oversee the church. But the problem then presented itself as to how to reunite it with its owner? As it turned out, hearing of the debacle as he showed her a necklace in Nativity Souvenirs, the manager had one of his employees drive the hour to and from Jaffa and bring the wallet to the hotel, where it was waiting when we returned in the evening. (Although Nativity Souvenirs is in Bethlehem, and "Palestinian" residents of Bethlehem are forbidden to cross into Israel, as might be expected the co-op has Israeli citizens in its employ, who can pass freely through the Wall.) 

I include this story as an example of how genuinely good the Christians of Bethlehem are, as well as the unknown individual who found the wallet in the church and turned it in with all its contents intact. As well as, of course, the power of prayer, because I know we were all praying that our companion be reunited with her belongings. And, yes, Nativity Souvenirs did obtain a sale by this good deed, but the drive to and from Jaffa was a very generous deed.

Just before we left the co-op, Tony handed off the job of guiding us in Bethlehem to a native Bethlehemite Christian named Sana -- when I confirmed her name she told me it means "light." She too gave a very impassioned description of the plight of Christians in Bethlehem -- not in a self-pitying way, but making clear her own family's defiant determination not to retreat and let the Muslims turn it into another Nain. She described the 19th-c. Status Quo agreement that is one thing that has helped thus far -- part of the agreement was that the Mayor of Bethlehem must always be Roman Catholic, while the Vice Mayor must be Greek Orthodox. But harsh realities have driven an insidious emigration dropping the percentage of Christians in Bethlehem to only 20% of the population of 39,000, who are very cautious about wearing their faith on their sleeves. The other 80% are Muslims, but she reiterated that there are many Christians in Bethlehem who are determined to remain. She certainly is.

Making it to Manger Square (which we hear of every Christmas Eve as the site of major celebrations -- even if muted in some years by the ever-present troubles), we arrived at the  complex of the Basilica of the Nativity. When I say "complex," I mean "complex." Paradoxically, having visited it I am now less sure of what exactly it comprises! It certainly has a structure I do not entirely understand. Here is what I pre-wrote in my research before the pilgrimage, intending to import it into this blog at the proper place:

     The Church of the Nativity is properly a Basilica. It hosts the oldest site venerated by Christian worshipers and is the oldest major church in the Holy Land. It was originally commissioned by Emperor Constantine the Great and his mother St. Helena in AD 327, on the site already long reverenced as the birthplace of Jesus. When the Emperor Justinian rebuilt it two centuries later after it was destroyed in one of the Samaritan rebellions against the Byzantine Empire, he maintained the architectural tone of Constantine and Helena’s original. The basilica as it stands now essentially dates from that time, although from what I understand it should benefit greatly from a major restoration project between 2013 and should have been completed earlier this year -- but is still in process. Like several other important sites, most notably the Holy Sepulchre which we’ll see on Sunday, custody of the Church of the Nativity is actually cooperative (well, “cooperative” is probably far too positive a term! – it’s really an uneasy, sometimes downright hostile, truce more than anything else) between three major middle eastern Christian bodies – Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Apostolic – and a couple other minor players – Coptic and Syrian Orthodox. Given that, I’m actually a bit surprised that the restoration project ever began at all.
     The Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria is right next door. Dating from 1347 it has been modernized a number of times since, most notably after Vatican II – and in this case the term “wreckovated” does apply. This is the actual Catholic parish church in Bethlehem, where the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem celebrates Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

So I wrote a few weeks ago. My confusion is that, whereas I thought the Basilica and St. Catherine's are two separate entities, with the Basilica being shared between the various denominations, Catholic and Orthodox, the way I understood Sana to explain it is that St. Catherine's is the Catholic part of the Basilica. I'm not sure how the Orthodox groups play into it other than that in the main church I think she said that the main sanctuary is Greek Orthodox. I could have totally misunderstood. In any case, St. Catherine's is Sana's own parish church, and she did not hesitate taking us where we needed to be and making needed changes on the fly. At one point, going out a clearly marked entrance-only, she said as much -- "This is my church -- I can take you where I want!"

As to making changes on the fly, as a for instance, we apparently were supposed to have Mass at 11:00 in a chapel adjacent to the cave in which St. Jerome lived and translated the Vulgate Latin Bible in the 4th c.; when that didn't work for whatever reason, she quickly got us space in a side chapel of the main church. Father's theme for this Mass was, again, emphasis on the fact that the infinite God of the Universe showed His face here -- assuming humanity in humility. We too must be humble to be like him.

Here are a few pictures of St. Catherine's ... "wreckovated" might be considered too strong a word, but compare the blandness of this church with the glory that is the Basilica of the Nativity -- right next door, even in the midst of a true renovation....

What's St. George doing here (besides
slaying the dragon)? Read Taylor Marshall's
Sword and Serpent trilogy to find out....

 

Then we entered the main Basilica -- which, unlike the sanitized modernity of St. Catherine's, reeks of antiquity. It certainly is more what I think I envisioned for the churches of the Holy Land. As I learned in my pre-trip research, it is currently under renovation, with a lot of construction equipment and debris in the nave. But great murals line what would be termed the gallery or perhaps the clerestory -- if those western church architectural terms even apply -- and the Greek Orthodox sanctuary with its great iconostasis as well as the right side aisle leading to the entrance to the grotto.

It seemed like every surface was covered with tapestries and icons and carvings and metalwork. And an incredible number of people were in there. Here is where we encountered the first of the truly claustrophobia-inducing crowds. We fought -- successfully -- a standing-room-only mass of people for about an hour to get through to the Grotto of the Nativity and the Place where the Manger was. As we got closer, Sana warned us that others would shamelessly push their way in front of us if we let them, and insisted that we lock ourselves into an impassible wall spanning the gap. I imagined Uhtred son of Uhtred bellowing out "Shield -- WALL!" as in The Last Kingdom.

It worked -- mostly. In any case, we did finally make it into the narrow steps down into the Grotto of the Nativity, where was the stable-cave in which Our Lady gave birth to Our Savior. 

And while [Joseph and Mary] were [in Bethlehem], the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2: 6-7)

The spot is marked by a 14-pointed silver "Star of Bethlehem" -- which we were able to touch as millions of other believers have before us. Only feet away was the place where the Manger was. I say "was" because the Manger itself was taken away long ago -- I do not remember if it was by St. Helena the mother of Constantine the Great or by Latin Crusaders -- but I had actually seen it before, in Rome, in the grotto beneath the altar of the Archbasilica of St. Mary Major.

(As an aside, the lack of a place in the inn may not have been for the reasons usually assumed, either because of great crowds of visitors or indifference on the part of the innkeeper. Michael Hesemann, in his Mary of Nazareth: History, Archaeology, Legends, suggests that may have because of Mary’s obviously imminent birthing, which would have rendered anyone coming into contact with her immediately afterward ritually impure. He considers that to have been of particular concern because he considers Jesus’ birth to have been most likely just before Passover – an interpretation I do not share, but it seems to me the issue would have been of concern before any feast, for instance, Hanukkah at the more traditional season for Jesus’ birth in mid winter.)

On a short drive from Manger Square to Shepherds' Fields, Tony described the relative types of herding and shepherding of sheep and goats. They are entirely different animals, requiring entirely different techniques. For instance, the shepherd's crook is used to train and control an alpha male sheep, and the others will follow that alpha male; on the other hand, herding goats sounds like herding cats -- with great skill with a slingshot, not  to hit and injure the goat (which would be a blemish rendering it unusable in the Temple Sacrifice), but rather to plant one right in its path and thus divert it the direction you want. Quiz: What kind of herder was King David?

At Shepherds' Fields (while Sana went into the restaurant we would be eating at to arrange our lunches), we passed through a large gate over which arch the words in red, “GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO,” “Glory to God in the Highest,” the song of the angels announcing the birth of their Lord, you pass into a courtyard garden where Tony continued talking about herding in ancient Israel, which was more to service the Temple Sacrifices than anything else.

Fr. Emilio

And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!" When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." (Luke 2: 8-15)

Part of the site was a small chapel which had fantastic acoustics -- Jennifer and I chanted the Gloria in mode 8 -- and then we took a quick look into a typical cave such as would have been used by the shepherds to shelter their sheep. It has been converted into a small chapel.

Almost across the street was the Shepherds' Nai Restaurant, which served us a form of barbecue as well as the customary salad dishes. It was very good, but the barbecue was very different from our own. There was chicken, which was basically kebobed (without the stick); it was seasoned very well, very tasty. Then there was something that tasted much more like our barbecue. It was some kind of ground meat -- a mixture of beef and lamb, I believe, in a roughly conical shape about four inches long on some kind of skewer. It was quite good. All the food we had was really good.

Photo from Kristal

And then Sana said her farewell -- as a "Palestinian" Christian native of Bethlehem, she is not allowed to cross the Wall into Israel. At all. And we were headed out of Bethlehem to Mount Zion, perhaps the most important mountain that makes up Jerusalem, the one that became synonymous with the city itself -- and is ironically outside the Old City walls! It's a somewhat funny story. Soon after the Ottoman Turks took over Jerusalem in the early 16th century, Suleiman the Magnificent ordered built what are the present Old City walls. Unfortunately, his architects messed up and left Mount Zion out. Unfortunately ... for them. The way the story goes, their heads are now inside the walls.... 

Arriving at Mount Zion, we first went to the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, the church of the "Cock Crowing," commemorating where Peter, after having promised Jesus he would follow him even unto death and been rebuked for it, with Jesus predicting he would betray him three times ere the cock crowed, did just that. 

Close-up of the door to 
St. Peter in Gallicantu.
Christ's finger, pointing toward Peter
as he predicts the threefold denial,
is actually raised to point out
to the observer.

Here Tony's experience excavating at the site made his exposition so effective. The church is built over what was the house of the High Priest Caiaphas where Jesus was taken directly from being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane -- up steps which have been preserved. Immediately adjacent was the courtyard where Peter denied his Lord, below which was the dungeon where horrific tortures would have been inflicted on Jesus overnight, between the preliminary trial before Caiaphas and dawn when he would be taken to Pilate.... 

     Then those who had seized Jesus led him to C′iaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. But Peter followed him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. Now the chief priests and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.’” And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But Jesus was silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes, and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” Then they spat in his face, and struck him; and some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”
     Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a maid came up to him, and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” And when he went out to the porch, another maid saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And again he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you are also one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the cock crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
     When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death;  and they bound him and led him away and delivered him to Pilate the governor. (Matt. 26: 57-27: 2)

What occurred would have been within earshot of the courtyard. Peter would have heard it all. Tony expressed great understanding and sympathy for Peter -- anyone would have lost their nerve hearing their Lord screaming in agony as Tony says any man would, and Jesus was fully man as well as fully God. 

 In the dungeon itself, in deference to his own spoken English being heavily accented, Padre Emilio offered me the privelege of reading Psalm 88 aloud:

O LORD, my God, I call for help by day;
    I cry out in the night before thee.
Let my prayer come before thee,
    incline thy ear to my cry!
For my soul is full of troubles,
    and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am reckoned among those who go down to the Pit;
    I am a man who has no strength,
like one forsaken among the dead,
    like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom thou dost remember no more,
    for they are cut off from thy hand.
Thou hast put me in the depths of the Pit,
    in the regions dark and deep.
Thy wrath lies heavy upon me,
    and thou dost overwhelm me with all thy waves.
Thou hast caused my companions to shun me;
    thou hast made me a thing of horror to them.
am shut in so that I cannot escape;

    my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon thee, O LORD;
    I spread out my hands to thee.
Dost thou work wonders for the dead?
    Do the shades rise up to praise thee?Selah
Is thy steadfast love declared in the grave,
    or thy faithfulness in Abaddon?
Are thy wonders known in the darkness,
    or thy saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
But I, O LORD, cry to thee;
    in the morning my prayer comes before thee.
O LORD, why dost thou cast me off?
    Why dost thou hide thy face from me?
Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
    I suffer thy terrors; I am helpless.
Thy wrath has swept over me;
    thy dread assaults destroy me.
They surround me like a flood all day long;
    they close in upon me together.
Thou hast caused lover and friend to shun me;
    my companions are in darkness.

After a few minutes for pictures, we walked to Dormition Abbey, passing by the outside of the Zion Gate leading into the Old City. 

All around the gate is severely pockmarked -- with bullet-holes from, Tony informed us -- a diversionary assault by the Israelis during the Six Days' War of 1967 which left another gate undefended against the real attack by which Israel regained control of the Old City and access to the holy sites for the first time in nineteen years. Hitherto, ever since the end of the 1948 War, the Old City and East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank had been under the control of the Kingdom of the Transjordan, modern Jordan, and Jews had been barred entry at all. Henceforward, Israel would control the city in its entireity, but would allow Muslim entry to the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock -- for all the thanks it has ever gotten them.

 Dormition Abbey is where Mary is said to have “fallen asleep” before being assumed into heaven. Although, since 1950 the Assumption of Mary is a dogma of the Church (like other such late definitions or decrees, believed consistently and only defined as such when called into question), whether she died or simply fell asleep has never been defined by the Church. In general, I believe, the western (Catholic) tradition is that, her Son having tasted death, Mary chose to die in union with him while the eastern (Orthodox) tradition is that, being sinless and thus not subject to death – which, after all, came into the world through the sins of Adam and Even – she did not die but rather fell asleep and then was taken up. 

That is only a generalization, however and there is plenty of overlap. In either case, she joined the rather exclusive club of those who are even now bodily in heaven before the general resurrection of the dead at the end of time – Enoch and Elijah as stated in the Bible (and, according to Jewish tradition, Moses). (By the way, as in so many of these traditional sites, there is a competing for the site of Mary’s Assumption. An ancient Catholic tradition has it that she died and was buried near Ephesus in Turkey, where she lived out the rest of her life on earth with John the Beloved Disciple, with the tomb having been found empty three days later. This is the version that plays a role in Michael D. O’Brien’s novel Father Elijah.)

I think it was immediately after Dormition Abbey -- or rather in its gift shop -- that I earned the dubious distinction of being our first "goat." I tarried a little overlong trying to procure an item that one of my friends asked me to get, a large panoramic poster of Jerusalem as seen from the Mount of Olives. My Whisper (a radio system for the guide to be able to narrate to a group without shouting) was off. Someone from our group came in and asked me if that were the case -- the group was ready to move on. As I hot-footed it out and back to them, turning on my Whisper I heard Tony's voice calling me: "Keh-eh-eh-eh-eh-ehnt! Keh-eh-eh-eh-eh-ehnt!" -- like a goat braying. Well played, sir, well played. I would not be the last goat, however ....

From there we proceeded to the Cenacle or Upper Room of the Last Supper. 

     And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the passover?” And he sent two of his disciples, and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the householder, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” And the disciples set out and went to the city, and found it as he had told them; and they prepared the passover. (Mark 14: 12-16)

 The present construction is not how it would have appeared in Jesus’ time, however, with vaulted ceilings and columns surmounted by obviously medieval carvings – it dates from the era of the Crusades and at times both a synagogue and a mosque. Despite which -- and despite efforts to erase it -- the basic Christian character of the room survives in some of the iconographic stone work. In this spot, two of the great events of salvation history took place, the Last Supper and the first Pentecost – the institution of the Eucharist and the Sacramental Priesthood and the descent of the Holy Spirit 54 days later. Unfortunately the varied history of the site has left its mark in a modern agreement that no religious activities can take place on the spot. Someone proposed praying the Come Holy Spirit, but Tony dissuaded us, cautioning us that we could not chant it aloud because of that agreement.

   And when the hour came, he sat at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it[b] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after supper, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood." (Luke 22: 14-20)

At the intersection, the Lamb of God

The Pelican feeding her young
from her own flesh

 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2: 1-4)

Lastly, we went into a working synagogue at what is celebrated (wrongly, Tony says) as the Tomb of David. It was an interesting experience. It was the Sabbath, of course, so it was relatively filled with Orthodox Jews chanting individually resulting in a cacaphony of noise. Women, of course, had to go to the women's side, and I do not know what their experience was, but I, Fr. Emilio, and Br. Miguel did not spend very long in there. We had to don the cheap disposable yarmulkas before entering, but we -- I -- felt like we stuck out like a sore thumb and really were not welcome there.

On the way back to our hotel, Tony again expressed his admiration for those Bethlehem Christians such as Sana who are courageous and tough and determined not to give in. She is one of only a few women in the guide business in Bethlehem, but he considers her the best.

Back at the hotel, we had about an hour's happy hour in the bar before 19:00 dinner. Once again I enjoyed two Taybeh beers which are native Israeli brewed. This evening, Tony joined us and regaled us with some stories of the local culture that some in the front of the bus had heard, but we toward the back had not.

After supper, I came up to the room and once again worked on this blog until almost 22:00.