A Very Different Christmas Day

Because we were working on the night shelter through Christmas morning, I was tired and fell asleep for a few hours and Christmas Day just slipped away. So, the family decided to celebrate Christmas Day on Boxing Day.

What should we cook for Christmas Lunch? Usually, we roast a turkey or chicken. I remember that one year She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed asked the boys what we wanted for Christmas Lunch and with one voice we replied 'SAUSAGES!'

So, that Christmas we had nothing but sausages: beef sausages, pork sausages, venison sausages, chicken sausages, British organic sausages, hearty German bratwurst and bockwurst, even some Spanish chorizo. We ate sausages for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and for a couple of days afterwards. At the end, we were heartily sick of sausages.

This year, we decided to have a Chinese 'steamboat' (Hot Pot).

 
There was chicken and thinly-sliced beef, pork, lamb, prawn, fish balls, squid balls and fish cakes, eggs, wan tun, rice noodles, bean curd, spinach, tung ho, turnip and Chinese leaf.

The basic stock was water, salt, chicken stock (from a reduced chicken carcass), ginger, turnip and bean curd with Chinese leaf. The food was dipped into the simmering stock using wooden chopsticks or fine metal scoops, cooked, and then dipped into bowls containing soy sauce, chili oil and white pepper before being popped into the waiting mouthes - wonderful!

After a leisurely cooking and eating session (accompanied by a nice bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc and some cans of Barr's Irn Bru) we retired to the Christmas Tree for the traditional present opening.

Happy Christmas!

,

Christmas, the Homeless and Midnight Mass

On Sunday 22nd December Pope Francis, prompted by a banner in St Peter's Square that read 'The Poor Cannot Wait,'  compared the difficulties of homeless families to that of the Holy Family, when the Lord Jesus was born in a stable and the family was then forced to flee to Egypt. The Pope called on everyone to do everything possible to ensure that every family has a place to live. A few days earlier he celebrated his 77th birthday by inviting four homeless men to breakfast. This is a Pope who 'walks the talk.'

We had the opportunity and privilege to offer - in a very limited way - good food, a safe and warm sleeping space and companionship to several homeless men last night - Christmas Eve - at the Sacred Heart Church's night shelter.

It was the work of a couple of hours to erect the folding beds, haul the men's bags (containing their duvets, sheets, pillows) from the van, set up and lay the tables, put out reading material, snacks, set up the kitchen and do the necessary admin. There were chocolates on the side table, a Christmas tree and seasonal table decorations.

The beds are ready

and the tables are set

As there are a number of charities that help the homeless in Brighton & Hove, we assumed the men would have taken advantage of a free lunch offered by several churches at this time of the year, so we decided against the traditional fare of turkey, Christmas Pudding and mince pies. Instead, Rachel and Tara and their team cooked a beef stew with dumplings, mash and veg, followed by tiramisu and cloud cake. Under the watchful eye of maestro Georges, assisted by Cathy, the kitchen became an orderly bedlam of steam, smells, bubbling liquids and shrieks of laughter. The only tears came from Tara who stood furiously chopping onions, wiping her eyes, wet streaks running down her cheeks.

Tara sheds a tear or two

but soon recovers from the onions!

Before dinner, we gave each man a Christmas card signed by all the volunteers on duty, together with a Boots Gift Card for £10 (- thank you SVP!) At dinner we pulled crackers, told jokes and stuffed ourselves. Father Kevin roared at this joke from a cracker:
What is an Ig?
It's an Eskimo house without a toilet...(I suspect he will find a way to use it in a homily).

After dinner, a dozen guests and volunteers sat down to puzzle over Lynne's annual Christmas Quiz. There were questions on geography, movies, famous personalities and so on, all lavishly illustrated. Phill won the huge box of chocolates and Patrick moderated the debate over the answers in his usual urbane way.

A couple of the men asked if they could attend midnight Mass so three guests and four volunteers hurried off at 11.20 pm to listen to the carols before Mass began. One of the men told me that he had last been to Mass when he was about five or six years old and was very keen to experience it again. Another couldn't remember when he had last been and was a little unsure whether he should go, but his curiosity overcame his caution. (When I spoke to them this morning, Christmas Day, they were still enthused about the experience. When I told them that they had been away from the shelter for two hours, they did not believe me - but it was true; half an hour of carols, an hour and a half of Mass. It must have flown past for them. One of them described the choir's singing as 'Heavenly...it sent goose-bumps up my spine').  

Speaking of the choir, by kind permission of Jane I was able to take my camera and perch on a chair in the corner of the choir loft, taking a few (discreet) photos of the Mass. It was the first time I had observed the choir in action - and the volume of sound is scary! Thundering organ, soaring violin and raised voices made the space vibrate. It was beautiful, haunting and powerful. Jane even invited me to sing with the choir - I think she must have a good sense of humour.    

The choir 

 Mass began on the dot of midnight as Fr. Kevin processed down the aisle with five servers (including the accomplished Georges who had just finished his shift cooking with the homeless shelter, and his daughter Cassie, another shelter volunteer.)

It was a special night. Thanks to all the wonderful selfless night shelter volunteers and to the guests who let us become their family for a few brief hours. Deo Gratias!

A Perfect Epidemic of Brass Bands

Yesterday I drove north to Durham (a seven hours journey, including an hour at motorway service stations) and drove back home today, another seven hours, transporting our elder student son - and a huge load of dirty laundry - for his Christmas break.

It’s always a joy to visit Durham...even when the visit is only for 17 hours - and it was dark for 12 of these - even when it’s cold and wet.

It was Saturday night so Geordie revellers in skimpy outfits were flooding into town, heading for the night clubs. There was lots of laughing and banter.

 

By the bridge a lonely busker in a red hat was playing loudly. But everyone wanted to be indoors on such a night.

 

We did too. At Oldfields’ restaurant, after a steaming pea and ham soup, a decent glass of merlot and a fish casserole, the evening was transformed.

 

In the distance, high above the trees, I saw the twin towers of the cathedral loom out of the inky darkness, dominating the town.

 

Walking carefully over the flagstones and rain-slicked cobbled stones, past the old half-timbered buildings, I progressed upwards until I finally reached the 900-year-old cathedral, splendidly floodlit. The castle beside it was in darkness, the faint outline of its battlements just visible in the darkness.   

I moved forward to take another photo – and then disaster. I stumbled over a kerb, the camera flew out of my hands and hit the ground with a tinkling sound that suggested it would be a long (and expensive) time before it worked again.

It’s tempting to remember the trip as the occasion that I destroyed a camera. Instead, I remember it for the perfect epidemic of Salvation Army brass bands in the city and surrounding areas. Their jaunty carols lifted the spirits and reminded me that Christmas is both a holiday and a holy day. A big thanks to the various bands I saw in the motorway service station, the city centre and in the Durham Tesco’s. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ... Joy to the World...Once in Royal David's City...brilliant!   

Israel: Thoughts From Afar

             It’s been two frantically-busy weeks since we returned from Israel, enough time for the humdrum of daily life to flood back, dulling the system - but also enough time to see the Israel experience in some sort of perspective. It was a massive experience, not the sort that you can easily forget and, in the quiet of an evening or lying awake at night, my thoughts occasionally drift back to the Lake of Galilee.

            Some random reflections follow, none of them particularly new or profound...     

            I think it was Father Pixner, a Benedictine monk in Jerusalem’s Dormition Abbey, who first suggested that the land of Israel is itself a Gospel, the ‘fifth Gospel.’ The four Gospels tell us of Jesus’ life and teaching; they speak of lakesides, deserts, hilltop towns, roads from here to there, wildernesses, mountains. The fifth Gospel is the holy land itself, the land where the Son of God was born, raised, walked, worked, preached, healed and died – and we can walk in His footsteps, in the same locations, marvelling.

            We all use our imagination to visualise the people and places of two thousand years ago, sometimes it is easy, sometimes it isn’t. Not having many deserts in fertile and green Sussex, I used to imagine the Judean Desert as a Sahara-type desert, perfectly flat with waves of sand - perhaps a French Foreign Legion fort lying beyond the next dune! Instead, the Judean desert is hilly, very rocky, lots of sand with shrivelled scrubs, a few mountains, some canyons – and occasional streams.

            It was easier to imagine the Lake of Galilee. If you have seen the West Coast of Scotland or the Lake District you will have a good idea what the Lake of Galilee is like (except the weather is much better – semi tropical in fact.). The lowest freshwater lake on earth, Lake Galilee is only thirteen miles by seven, surrounded by hills, and it is easy to believe that air moving from the cool Golan Heights down to the semi-tropical waters can cause sudden fierce storms  - as the Apostle Peter could well attest! (A storm in March 1992 sent waves 10 feet high crashing into downtown Tiberias – which is situated on the lakeside - causing significant damage).

            For me, Galilee spoke volumes. It is on a human scale with little villages and towns surrounding the Lake. It is easy to imagine the crowds of listeners forcing Jesus to retreat to a boat for his safety and to preach from a hundred yards offshore. It is also easy to imagine the apostles walking along the shore, from village to village, as Jesus taught in the local synagogues. Indeed, Jesus and four apostles (Peter, James, Andrew and John) lived in Capernaum, and when we were there we visited some of the ruins of the first-century synagogue where Jesus would have taught, and saw what is credibly believed to be the home of Peter. That is what the ‘Fifth Gospel’ means to me.  

            Speaking of geography, I had not expected Israel to be so small. It is only 263 miles long and between 9 and 71 miles wide, about 8,000 square miles in area – almost exactly the same size as Wales. Bethlehem is only 6 miles away from Jerusalem. Nazareth (which is between the Lake of Galilee and the coast) is about 65 miles north of Jerusalem, as the crow flies. Observant Jews (like the Holy Family) would travel from their home in Nazareth to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year. To avoid Samaritan territory, they could not take the direct route and would have to go a circuitous route via the Jordan Valley, adding 50% more distance to the journey. Walking (through bandit-infested mountains, deserts, valleys in horrendous temperatures or wading through snow) they would take a week each way. They probably didn’t need to go to the gym to work out...

            The sheer antiquity of Israel is staggering. At Jericho, allegedly one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, the first with city walls, we saw ruins of 23 different civilisations – basically piles of old stones – that archaeologists tell us may be dated as far back as 9,000BC – in other words they could be 11,000 years old. They may or may not be that old, what is clear is that there was a city here in ancient times, maybe the one where, in the worlds of the old gospel song, ‘Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, and de walls came a tumblin’ down.’ All over Israel there are ruins and archaeological digs that evidence both antiquity and the destructiveness of humans – Jerusalem was destroyed twice, besieged 23 times and attacked 52 times.    

            And that is one of the dilemmas facing the tourist - what is real and what is hokum?  Since there has been so much destruction, so much re-building, so few historic records from 2,000 years ago, can we really rely on the location of supposedly holy sites? Is this really where Jesus was born, where he died, where he performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, where he prayed with the disciples, where he was tempted by the Devil, was transfigured, ascended into Heaven and so on? 

            The answer is probably that we cannot be sure for any individual site. However, there is a very good chance that many of the holy sites that we visit are indeed holy. The reason is that there is a trail of ancient writings and ancient churches (typically Byzantine and then Crusader) pointing to one particular spot.

            For example, consider the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The New Testament says that Jesus was born in a ‘manger.’ However, early writers such as Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, say he was born in a ‘cave.’ This makes sense as many houses in these days were built adjoining caves and the cave was used to keep livestock and for storage. Third century writers such as Origen record that a particular cave was venerated as the birthplace of the Lord. When Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion he and his mother (Saint) Helena rushed about building churches on top of all the holy places they could find. So, in 339AD the first church was built directly above the cave. Emperor Justinian knocked it down in 530AD and built a larger one. Then the Crusaders in the 11^th century did their own re-modelling and, although the Ottomans nicked much of the marble, the church survived until modern times. So, the rule is, if your holy place has the ruins of a very, very old church stuck on top of it, it’s probably genuine. (The Church of the Nativity contains quite a lot of Constantine’s original church, including pillars and mosaics, and the ancient altar is over an ancient cave.)   

            One of the challenges the pilgrim faces is whether to be a pilgrim or a tourist. I’m a great camera buff, happily snapping away at the least excuse. At home, my first action on entering a church would be to genuflect, observe a moment’s respectful pause, and then kneel or sit in prayer (or, at least, in prayerful silence). In Israel I found myself barging into churches, wielding my camera like a weapon, looking for the best camera angle, trying to figure out what exposure and white balance was required...Maybe I wasn’t the worst behaved but I certainly wasn’t the best. As Chaucer revealed many years ago, pilgrims are not necessarily as holy as the places they visit. Enough said!

            Our tour guides were Palestinian Christians. There is concern at the numbers of Palestinian Christians leaving Israel to find work abroad and our tour agency had a policy of supporting them economically, to generate work for them within Israel; thus, we used guides, transport and hotels supplied by Palestinian Christians and were directed to their cooperative shop in Bethlehem.

            The Separation Wall (also called the Security Wall by the Israelis) is a blot on the landscape. It separates Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied areas of the West Bank so that they cannot enter Israel without authorisation. Whatever the rationale for its introduction, history tells us that apartheid and segregation carry the seeds of their own destruction and, as we celebrate the life and achievement of Nelson Mandela, let us pray that there is a Nelson Mandela in Israel today who will reconcile Jews and Arabs. The Palestinian Christians who were our guides on the tour identified themselves first as Arabs, as Palestinians, as oppressed subjects rather than as fellow-traveller Christians. Interesting, but also potentially concerning.

Sacred Heart Church, Hove, Opens its Winter Night Shelter

Last weekend the Brighton & Hove Churches’ Winter Night Shelter project for homeless men opened. This is the second year it has operated and the number of churches involved has grown from seven to 14 and the length of the shelter from 13 to 18 weeks. The churches are drawn from various denominations, including Church of England, Baptist, Evangelical and Roman Catholic.

The scheme uses a model devised by the Christian charity Housing Justice. This uses a minimum of seven churches, each church uses its own facilities to house the homeless for one night before passing them on to the next church which hosts them for the following night, and so on.

Sacred Heart Church in Hove is the Tuesday night church for the Brighton & Hove shelter, and this is the procedure we followed last night, which was our first night of the season.


The beds are ready

My wife and I arrived a couple of hours before the volunteers to arrange tables and chairs, check food stocks, review health and safety and do the necessary administration. By 7.00pm the Evening Shift, a dozen volunteers, had arrived and they quickly set about their tasks, mainly cooking, setting tables, erecting beds, putting out fruit and newspapers, and making final preparations in the Parish Rooms before our guests arrive.

At 7.45pm there is a pause for a team briefing, concluding with a moving prayer that ends with the words:

‘...Bless our working together this night,

Watch over us all,

And help us to pass on to our guests a true sense of their dignity

and of Your loving care.

Amen.’  

 

The kitchen starts to get crowded

Between 8.00pm and 8.30pm our 15 guests arrive, usually tired, cold, hungry and often wet. They have been referred to the project by four agencies in Brighton & Hove that specialise in the homeless: Antifreeze; First Base; YMCA and the council’s Rough Sleeper Team. The Churches’ Project representative also undertakes a risk assessment interview with each candidate before a final selection is made.

Volunteers then greet the men, explaining how our church’s facilities operate, what the timetable for meals is, the entertainment available, smoking breaks and so on. Steaming cups of tea and coffee are gratefully received, bags unpacked, beds made and the men sit down and begin to relax.
 
At 9.00pm, we say grace together and then dinner is served; a constant stream of volunteers shuttles back and forth from our tiny kitchen balancing plates piled high with rice, chicken curry and vegetables, other carrying jugs of fruit juice or cups of tea. The meal is popular with quite a few requests for ‘seconds.’ Most of the volunteers sit down to eat with the guests and the conversation gathers pace.
 
Sometimes a little bit of personal history is shared, the football results are analysed, the weather prospects discussed, stories of housing or job experiences are related, a joke is told. Fr. Kevin is sitting beside a man who seems to be unburdening himself, a common experience. Then the pudding arrives, hot apple pie with custard or cream. One man at my table has three helpings and is sizing up a fourth when I get up from the table, another says he is too full to eat pudding but changes his mind. A debate begins on whether the pie is home-made, the opinion is that it’s too good to be shop-bought.

Two free cinema tickets have been donated. Determined to avoid any charge of bias I’ve written each man’s name of a scrap of paper, scrunched them up and put them in a bag. In front of the men I invite one of the guests, a middle-aged Polish man, to draw the first name. He reaches in, pulls out a paper, unfolds it – and yells with excitement! It was his own name. The room erupts with cheers and cat calls.
 
By 10.30pm the four Night Shift volunteers arrive. Lights out is at 11.00pm but by 10.00pm many of the men are asleep. They are simply exhausted and the luxury of a comfortable bed in a safe environment is to be enjoyed as much as possible.
 
The Evening volunteers depart and the Night Shift settle into its pattern of two-on, two-off. There are always two volunteers on duty, awake and alert, reading, listening to music, writing Christmas Cards (or poetry). The air is stuffy now, noisy with snoring, but peaceful.
 
At 6.00am we have returned to the church Parish Rooms with the six Morning Shift volunteers. The bleary-eyed Night Shift brief us before departing. They have switched the boiler on and soon breakfast is in full swing. Eggs and bacon, bacon rolls, cereal, toast, juices are laid out. The radio is switched on at 6.30am, letting the men know it is time to get up. They’re quiet, subdued; several read the newspapers over breakfast, others linger over a smoke, some just sit and think, mentally preparing for the day ahead. A couple of guys mentioned last night that they cannot afford the 50 pence subsidised meal that one of the city charities advertises, so we press then to take some sandwiches, a boiled egg, a cereal bar with them.
 
By 7.30am they have left. Most have helped us to load the van with the beds and bags ready for transport to the Wednesday night church which One Church, a Baptist church in the city centre. There are a flurry of “thank you’s” and the men are gone.
 
The remains of the meal are put away, chairs and tables stacked, toilets cleaned, floors hovered. By 9.00am we leave a tidy but very quiet Parish Room. In another week it will start all over again.
 
It’s been a privilege to operate the night shelter. Apart from the opportunity to fulfil the Gospel injunction to feel the hungry etc, there are a variety of other tangible and important benefits. We meet members from other churches and build bridges while working together. Our own volunteers enjoy a tremendous sense of espirit de corps, they often arrive early for shifts, work with tremendous goodwill and humour, and leave reluctantly; we only need about 20 staff to cover three shifts but we have 55 volunteers, so we operate two alternating shifts. It is also a great opportunity to relate to the homeless; no longer ‘invisible,’ they are transformed into personalities who could – but by the grace of God – be ourselves or our relatives. And it also makes us think about what we truly value and if we value things more than people...        

Nazareth - Images of the Blessed Virgin Mary

We know nothing about the physical appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so it is natural that, being the Mother of God who ‘continues to exercise her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ’ as Pope Paul VI put it, all nations see her as ‘Mother’ through their own eyes.

The Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth is built on what is believed to be the site of Mary’s house, where the angel Gabriel appeared to her. There has been an altar here from the third - some say fourth – century; certainly, there is no question that the site has been continually venerated since antiquity. The present building, the largest church in the Middle East, has a wonderful collection of mosaic images of Mary, presented to it by Christian communities from around the world.

 For example...

KOREA

CHINA

EGYPT

INDONESIA

ITALY

GREECE

POLAND

THAILAND

SINGAPORE

VIETNAM

UKRAINE

PHILIPPINES

Israel – Day Seven – Jerusalem

This is going to be a short(ish) entry as we are back in the UK now and there are a million and one things to be done...but it would be negligent of me to miss out the last half-day in Jerusalem.

The morning began with Mass at the Co-Cathedral Church of the Holy Name of Jesus. This is where the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem hangs out. He is the senior Catholic bishop for the area and responsible for 70,000 Catholics in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Cyprus.

The current Patriarch is His Beatitude Fouad Twal, a Jordanian Arab, and the Patriarchate is situated in the Old City, behind a high wall with crenellations, the white and yellow of the Vatican flag fluttering in the breeze, surrounded by narrow twisting streets. Inside, there is a large courtyard and a number of buildings, including the Church.

As Fr. Ephraim prepared to say Mass I twisted my head this way and that, feasting my eyes on this small but perfectly formed building. To the left was a statue of St Peter (looking like it was copied from the one in the Vatican), and high up in the walls several brightly-coloured stained glass windows let rays of coloured light stream in.

A happy pilgrimage group then lined up for a souvenir photograph.

I did not know it at the time but a week earlier the Patriarch had joined a protest of Christians angry at the demolition of a house owned by the Latin Patriarchate and let to a Palestinian family. According to press reports, Israeli troops and bulldozers turned up at 5.00am, forced the inhabitants out, took away their cell phones so they could not inform anyone, and proceeded to demolish the house. The Patriarch was reported to have described it as ‘an act of vandalism that violates international law.’ Sadly, everyday life in Israel does not always reflect the beauty and peace found inside its churches. God bless the peacemakers in these fraught times.

After Mass we wandered about for a couple of hours until it was time to catch the coach to the airport.

In the souk near out hotel I noticed that we were walking over some old paving slabs. Then I noticed a plaque saying that they were part of the pavement built at the end of the Roman period in the third and fourth century – imagine, we were treading on the same stones that shoppers had walked over 1,800 years earlier...

Further on, we passed a sight that reminded me that Roman soldiers had once patrolled these same streets. Two thousand years have passed, it’s now women soldiers who walk the streets with modern weapons...but there is something infinitely sad about the fact it is still necessary to bear arms in a crowded shopping area after all these years.

Fortunately, we passed a musical duo joyfully sawing and scraping away as we boarded the coach for Ben Gurion Airport. Their happy music hung in the air and our hearts were lifted. From somewhere came an echo of The Holy City:

Jerusalem! Jerusalem!

Lift up your gates and sing,
Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna to your King!

Israel – Day Six – Jerusalem

 

Our first visit was to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is said to be sited over both Golgotha (the Hill of Calvary) where Jesus was crucified, and also over the place where He was buried, the Sepulchre. This is probably the most important and significant religious site in the world for Christians, and has been since the fourth century.

It also seems to be the most-visited site in Jerusalem with thousands of pilgrims pouring through the entry door each day, tour guides trying to marshal them, everyone tripping over everyone else with endless queues for each site. It is so crowded that the best staged photo ends up with strangers appearing in it as they dash by.

And, if that wasn’t enough, the Church isn’t one but five separate churches, ,merging together in higgledy-piggledy fashion and run separately by the Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Abyssinian Coptic denominations. Then, there is the fact that much of the church(es) are in semi-darkness, lit by occasional candles and lamps, making photography a nightmare.

So, this has been a difficult visit to write about, and to illustrate – but it has also been a sublime joy, a privilege and an immense emotional and spiritual impact.

Let’s begin with the red limestone slab near the entrance, flanked by ornate candle stands with eight devotional lamps hanging above. This is where the body of Jesus was laid out after crucifixion, in preparation for wrapping Him in a burial shroud.

Then there is the Tomb of Jesus Christ (provided by Joseph of Arimathea). There is always a large queue for entry, which is restricted by the Orthodox priest in charge to a handful of people at a time and then for only a minute or so. The outer chapel uses a piece of the stone that was rolled away from the entrance to the tomb as an altar, the inner chapel, a very small room has space for only three pilgrims at a time. It is lit only by flickering candles, and contains the actual rock tomb, with a marble slab covering the place where Jesus’ body rested. Such is the speed of the pilgrim turnaround that the enormity of the experience only dawns on you some time after you have emerged from the tomb.

Up a steep flight of steps are two more chapels. The Roman Catholic one, which has a vaulted ceiling and arches covered in mosaics, commemorates when Jesus was stripped of his garments, The Greek Orthodox one is ablaze with lamps, candles, embossed silver panels and life-size silver icons.

 

Under its altar is a small hole where the pilgrim can touch the very rock of Golgotha on which Jesus was crucified. The original rock can also be seen through two glass panels – which also show the rock was split apart by the earthquake that occurred when Jesus died.

 

Our own miracle of the day, the Holy Mass, was held in the Crusader chapel and, as usual, co-celebrated by Fathers Mark and Ephraim. Incidentally, I believe that Father Mark is a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, a religious and charitable order.

 

Afterwards, wandering through the complex we saw various religious ceremonies and I was particularly struck by the powerful rhythmic chanting of the Oxthodox priests.

Then we walked for 20 minutes or so in the warm sunshine to the other wide of the walled Old City to visit St. Anne’s Church, which is just inside the Muslim Quarter.

 

St. Anne was the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ruins of a Byzantine church of the fifth century have been unearthed and legend has it that the church was built over Joachim and Ann’s house. The present church was built in the twelfth century by the Crusaders and is the best-preserved Crusader church in Jerusalem. It is simple and modestly decorated but famous for its acoustics; when I visited a group of pilgrims was singing ‘Amazing Grace’ and the sound seemed to fill the church.   

 

Below, in the crypt is the supposed remains of Joachim and Anne’s house where Mary was born and contains a rather fetching painting of her.

 

Outside, excavations have unearthed what is believed to be the Pools of Bethesda where Christ healed a sick man (John 5:2-9).

Around midday we began the Stations of the Cross, starting from just inside the Lions Gate and following the route along the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Via Dolorosa, which is a narrow street anyway, was particularly crowded, and often we had to queue at a particular Station until the tour group in front of us completed that Station. Occasionally the shop owners in the street became frustrated with the crowded, slow-moving groups, and urged us to get a move on. It seemed every nationality under the sun was praying and progressing in Jerusalem today – particularly the Russians!   

Our afternoon was free time so we headed for the Western Wall (also known as the ‘Wailing Wall’ although that it is not a particularly polite or charitable description of the prayers offered by the faithful commemorating the destruction of the Holy City).

 

Security was effective but not obsessive or intrusive. Entry was through a checkpoint staffed by security guards who scanned our bags and then waved us through. I collected a free skullcap and joined the people praying at the Wall. Immediately next to the wall were many Orthodox-looking Jews, some wearing tefillin, and there were some Israeli soldiers there too, unarmed, praying earnestly. There were also hordes of tourists, Africans and Asians particularly, clutching their skullcaps and taking photographs. I noticed one African priest, in Roman collar and wearing alarge gilt cross, walk right up to the Wall and thrust his phone in people’s faces, taking close-up photographs. I don’t know what impressed me more: the many devout petitioners and the fervour of their prayers, or the incredible forbearance that they showed in the face of intrusive and insensitive tourists.

Men and women had segregated areas and the women’s area was as busy as the men’s, sometimes busier.

Dome and top of Western Wall

I was surprised by how close the Moslem Dome of the Rock (and the El Aksa Mosque) was to the Western Wall. In fact I was tempted to visit the Dome until I heard it closed at midday, so we returned to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Walking through the Jewish Quarter we saw much archaeological excavations, including a section of city wall built at the time of the First Temple (from 1,000BC). We passed another ancient building which was occupied by Israeli women soldiers undertaking training.

 

 Enough for today...