Day Six All about Jerusalem
The day started early for 23 of us, leaving at 6:00 on When we got to Jerusalem we headed to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. There was. Mass going on at the tomb but the line to Golgotha (Mount Calvary) was short so I shepherded the people there. Others crowded into our queue which was frustrating, but eventually everyone had a moment where they could touch the top of Calvary.
From there we roamed some streets getting a feeling for the market areas before they opened. We crossed from the Muslim quarter to the Jewish section, passing by the Roman Cardo which gave an idea of the street level t the time of Jesus. We got a quick look at the Wailing Wall before racing back to St. Anne’s Church and the Pool of Bethsaida to meet the rest of the group as we started the regular tour day. I was delighted to reconnect with. Previous guide, Tony, who was leading another large group that day.
St. Ann’s commemorates the birthplace of Mary. It is a crusader area church which has extraordinary acoustic qualities. We sang there and visited the grotto of Mary’s birth (by that tradition) and looked at pool of Bethsaida, a truly authentic site. (john 5).
Next we moved up the Via Dolores, the way of the cross. We stopped at each station and read and sang using our Magnificat books. It was a very good experience. We each took turns carrying the cross, four at. Time. The final five stations are in the church itself; since it would be difficult to do that, we completed It outside the church. Then we went inside to celebrate Mass using the Franciscan space just off the church proper. I had never had Mass in that chapel. It is perhaps the only quiet place in that church.
After Mass most of us stood in line to enter the tomb. It was a little more than an hour wait. We prayed a rosary together during that time, and I’m sure other prayers were said as well. It was only 20 seconds or so in the actual tomb, but I felt it was worth it. When I was a student there we could visit around 4:00 p.m. and all the tourists were gone. We could have several minutes there by ourselves. It is more than the tomb; it is the place of the resurrection. We need to believe the gospel, “You look for Jesus the crucified; he is not here. He has gone to Galilee before you.”
After lunch we had a short time of shopping. I will have to build in more of that for future groups. Or so I am told.
In the afternoon we walked through extremely crowded streets to get to a north-south corridor that would take us outside the city walls to Mount Zion. The mountain was named this by the Crusaders. There we visited the Upper Room. It was built by the Crusaders in 1100 above the tomb of David. So much happened in the place commemorated there: the Last Supper; the morning Easter night appearance of Jesus; Pentecost. It was a place to celebrate the institution of the Eucharist, arguably that of Penance, and also the Priesthood. I had asked that the people say a prayer for me while they were in there. They surrounded me and prayed an Our Father together.
Another memory of that site this trip: Usually I have been in there alone or just with the group and possibly one other. This particular afternoon it was crowded with many large groups. But as I walked in, I had a sense that is was indeed Pentecost again. The murmur of many languages tumbling over each other was impressive.
From there we walked down to the Church of St. Peter Gallicantu (St. Peter of the Cockcrow.). This is quite probably built over the site of the home of the High Priest, and Jesus would have been taken there after his arrest in Gethsemane. It is near the bottom of the hill, and not far from the Kidron Valley, and faces the Mount of Olives. There is a dungeon there as well. It also features what is known as the Holy Stairs, a set of stairs that was there at the time of Jesus and was the most straightforward route from Mt. Zion to the Mount of Olives. It is almost certain Jesus would have traversed those stairs, and quite possibly did it both on the way from the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane and again after his arrest. The church itself has many mosaics (recent, from the past century) depicting scenes from the arrest and denial by Peter. It is a quiet meditative place and worth visiting.
After this we went back to the hotel and had supper. But there was more that evening: we had a tour of the Western Wall Tunnel, and visited the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall, or Western Wall, is the western side of the retaining wall that makes up the Temple Mount, the large space on which the Herod’s version of the temple was. That temple was destroyed by the Romans after the Jewish revolt of 66-70 A.D. Two mosques, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aska mosque are there now. For years, up to the six-day war of 1967, it was the farthest Jews could go, and that was just on certain days. After the 1967 war they demolished some buildings there and created a broad plaza leading to the wall where many people pray each day and many pilgrims leave notes in cracks in the wall.
The Western Wall Walk is a tour of excavations done over the past few decades. It goes for 500 meters, some of it at the level of the streets at the time of Jesus. He may have walked that street and put his hand on the wall; we don’t know. Some of the blocks are enormous. One has been found that is 10 feet high, 15 feet deep, and 50 feet long. That is 7,500 cubit feet of rock, all in one block. And it is on the seventh layer of the retaining wall. Along the walk we found some people praying at that spot which would have been the closest to where the Holy of Holies of the temple would have been. This was a part of the tour I had never been on, and I was fascinated by it. As a preparation for the actual walk, our guide Joseph used the models and computer presentations available to give people a clearer understanding of what the Temple Mount was and how it was made.
A long day, very fruitful. It only missed a nightcap at the King David Hotel.
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