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!