Israel pilgrimge: sixteenth in series

Hello, everyone.

This post will cover the last day of visiting in the Holy Land.

We rolled out early as usual. The visits of the day were all in Bethlehem, near our hotel. The first visit was the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord, also known as the Church of St. Catherine Martyr.

As y'all can see, our group had matching ID lanyards in pale blue. These had our names, and on the back of the little name insert was the name of the tour company. In case it should be needed.

St. Catherine. Note the broken wheel which, being a way the Roman
 government tried to kill her, is an identifying item in her images.

The image of St. Catherine was in the Latin part of the church. (Remember, all the major shrines are shared.)

The Church of the Nativity was never fully destroyed during
 the centuries of conquest and ruin. A few of the original mosaics
 are conserved on the walls.

We passed through from the Latin part of the shrine to the Orthodox (Greek) part of the shrine. The line of pilgrims was beginning to build.

The Orthodox are very into ostrich eggs
 on their lamps.

One of the pilgrims from another group was talking to me. We discussed the significance of the ostrich eggs. I mentioned the eggs being a symbol of the Resurrection of Our Lord. He mentioned another beautiful image: the mother ostrich, he told me, is said to stay near her eggs while she is setting. Even when she gets up from the eggs to eat or drink, she keeps her eyes on the nest. Thus, the ostrich eggs remind us that God, like the ostrich hen, is always watching over us.

(We had time to talk, since our group was at the head of the line for the Latin access to the grotto of the Nativity, and we were a little bit early. The Armenians were still praying inside the grotto. And no, you can't just scooch in on another group's time!)

When we went down the steps into the actual place of the Nativity, we discovered that there were filmmakers there, and also a man was setting up for Mass. (Not Mass for our group. We wouldn't have all fit into this tiny space anyway.) I settled for respectfully looking in from the edge and taking a photo to remember with.

After this, we went to the Milk Grotto. Or possibly it's the Milky Grotto. The significance of this shrine is that traditionally it is the place where Joseph took Mary and Jesus to hide on their way out of town after the angel appeared to him in a dream and told him to get the Child and His mother out of their PDQ.

An altar inside the Milk Grotto. The images are the betrothal of Mary and Joseph,
the Annunciation, the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the shepherds, the
adoration of the magi, and possibly the Holy Family hiding out
in the Milk Grotto as they fled Bethlehem towards Egypt.

The stone of the Milk Grotto, another cave shrine, is white instead of dirty gray-black. Possibly it was never used for cooking. (Thus explaining why it was a safe place to hide for a day or so?)

An icon of Mary feeding the baby Jesus. 

There are a number of interesting images of various saints, and also an altar with reliquaries.

The Flight into Egypt. Someone had placed a bouquet
among the rocks at one side. Possibly this is a thing for
Christian brides?

The shrine is administrated by Franciscan nuns. They have, at the very deepest part of the cave, an adoration chapel. It is separated from the area the pilgrims visit by a glass window. (Franciscan nuns tend to be cloistered.) They have made the neighborly gesture to place a kneeler by the window for any pilgrims who wish to join them in adoration of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Taken from outside of the chapel. This is a very modern, yet very respectful, monstrance. I see the shape of His Sacred Heart in the metal at the center. But that could be just me.

We also visited the Church of the Shepherds' Field.

We had Mass in the Cave of the Shepherds.
Above the door there was a bee nest.

Above the cave was this angel. (?)

While walking the paths back toward the entrance, we saw a group of Korean (?) nuns, also on pilgrimage. There are people from all over the world who visit the holy sites.

View of the entrance to the Shepherds' Field from the shop across the street. The lines were beginning to build up. By the time we left this place there were crowds going in.

A view of the place we later ate lunch on this,
our last day in the Holy Land. It has nice views
of Bethlehem from those big windows. 

This picture was taken because it was an interesting building. Little did we know that later that day we would be in there!

The offices of the tour company, next to the door leading to the
restaurant where we ate lunch this last day,

When we stopped for lunch, we were in front of the offices of the tour company who were organizing our visit to the Holy Land. We didn't go in and bother them, though. We went into the door at the right and rode the elevator up to the Skyline cafe.












We returned to our hotel for dinner and a very short night.

I finally remembered to take a food picture at the hotel.

The salad bar at the Hotel St. Gabriel

We met in the lobby at 1 a.m. the next morning. We had to hitch a ride on another group's bus for part of the way to the Tel Aviv airport--something about our bus's engine belt coming off--but about half of the way there our bus caught up with us and we switched back over.

After waiting in the airport intake line--these folks are serious about security, for good reason--we had a few minutes before we had to be in the gate area. We took the moments to visit shops in the airport and also the facilities. Because airplane facilities are guaranteed to be more miserable to use than airport ones!

In the airport, departing, this nifty wireless device to summon aid for restroom problems. Cool!

And that was the final day of our visit to the Holy Land.

The next few posts will be catch up posts for various things on the home front.

Israel pilgrimage: Fifteenth in series

Hello, everyone.

By now, we were close to the end of our visiting in the Holy Land. It was the day after the Stations of the Cross, which had been a lot of standing and a fair amount of walking on pavement. On this day we began by visiting the last surviving wall of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem.

(Herod's temple was I believe an enlargement of the second temple that was built by returnees during the Persians' rule. I think we're talking about the book of Nehemiah here, but am not completely sure. At any rate, later after the Maccabees pushed the imperialist Greek colonizers--who insisted that the occupants of this area become Greek pagans like themselves instead of letting them live their own lives with their own religion--there was unrest and much turnover in the kingship of the area. The Romans having come along by then, they grew impatient with the fighting over the king's seat and put in place the family of Herod as kings. One of the Herods decided to make the temple in Jerusalem really impressive and added on to it.)

The western wall foundation is the last remnant of Herod's temple. The rest was torn down during the rebellion of about 100 AD when the Romans rolled through in force and sacked the city.

Pigeons in a niche in the wall.

Ladies praying at the wall. (The local custom is for the ladies to have a section that is theirs and the gentlemen to have a section that is theirs.) It is the strictly observed custom for all the ladies to wear hats or scarves and all the gentlemen to wear a kippah, the Jewish mens' cap, while visiting the Western Wall.

Ruins in the vicinity of the wall.

There were a lot of people there. We saw a number of groups processing in to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of their young man, carrying canopies and singing and being accompanied by drummers and other musicians. Some of them were dancing as they went. (To respect the privacy of the various people in these groups, I am not putting those pictures up.)

After that visit, we went by bus over to the church of St Peter in Gallicante, St Peter of the Crowing Rooster. (So named because here St. Peter was called out by various persons as part of Jesus' party and in an attempt to remain low profile he denied that he knew Jesus. And the third time he did so, the rooster crowed.)

A good look at the front of the church of Gethsemane, which is too close to the sidewalk for a view of the mosaic above the entrance, but from across the Kidron valley shows beautifully.

St Peter in Gallicante is built over the ruins of the house of Caiaphas the High Priest, who as y'all will remember was the one who interrogated Jesus after His arrest and convened a (kangaroo-style) court to judge Him. After the group of elders they had on hand condemned Jesus to death, they stored Him in an old grain cellar, lowering Him by rope, until morning. Then they dragged Him over to Pilate to convince the Romans to permit the death penalty.

These days there are stairs down to the grain cellar. Groups take turns paying respects to the site.

After this visit, we went to Ein Kerem, which is not pronounced in the German fashion like I expected but instead as if the I in Ein isn't actually there, and visited the Church of the Visitation. (The Visitation is the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, it is when Mary visited her cousin St. Elizabeth and is described briefly in the Gospel of Luke.)

Ein Kerem is in the hills and we had a very respectable walk uphill to the church. It was the longest continuous walk in our visit to the Holy Land.

There was a very peaceful outdoor chapel there where our pastor offered Mass.

When we returned to the parking area at the bottom we discovered that there is a walk in the hills around the area. The trail mark was oval and two-colored; it looked to me like the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings

but I'm sure the people who picked it out were probably unaware that a movie would pick that shape for the eye years later.

This was the last stop of another full day.

Israel pilgrimage, fourteenth in series, and Christmas greetings (updated for spelling)

Hello, everyone.

This is the third post for the day we walked the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem. It will complete the day with a brief remembrance of the chapel of Golgotha, which is also inside of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

As you enter the church, if you look to the right immediately, you see some very steep steps. These are the steps of Golgotha. It's a really steep little peak--granted there may have been a little more dirt over the rocks back then. Still, a tough climb up at the last from someone who had been beaten, dragged across the city three times, and then had to drag/carry a cross to the outside of the city. I almost wonder whether they had to do the nailing a little below the peak as there appears to be not much flat space for the executioners to work in at the top.

Inside the door of the chapel is another, very crowded, line.

The line. Also an overview of some of the beautiful and edifying mosaics on the ceiling and walls. (The birds alongside the cross are souls ascending into Heaven.) This is the Latin chapel, the actual place the Cross stood is in the Orthodox chapel which is out of sight around the corner on the left.

Detail of the mosaic: the Bark (ship) of Peter on the left, a symbol of the Church; the Eucharistic pelican on the right. The pelican here is a theological, poetic pelican. She feeds her young with her own blood by piercing her breast. It is a very ancient analogy of the Eucharist.

A detail of the Sorrowful Mother, viewing her Son. Even the executioner is sad.

Another image of Mary as Sorrowful Mother. Besides the candles and the crucifix (it's an altar) you can also see some of the devotional gifts that have been offered to the honor of the mother of Our Lord. This time she's portrayed with the sword prophesied by Simeon when He was presented in the Temple as an infant. ("Your heart, too, will be pierced by a sword, that the thoughts of many may be revealed," I think it goes. It's in the Gospel of Luke.)


And speaking of the Gospel of Luke, today is Christmas Eve, AKA the Vigil of Christmas.



The tree has a bow because the fake trees are too delicate to accept a star. Trying to strengthen it never really worked, so I capitulated.






The angel was a light cover from a tree light strand that had a whole flock of angels. It came with a little clip, which holds it nicely atop the stable.


I hope for all y'all to have a blessed and merry Christmas and a happy new year. Feliz navidad, y prospero año y felicidad!

Israel pilgrimage, thirteenth in series

Hello, everyone. It's been busy around ye olde homestead, and days slipped by without being noticed. (Hey, it's Christmas season. It happens to us all.) Sorry about the gap in posting.

We left off on a busy day that had already included visiting the place of Our Lady's birth and the Upper Room. Today's post will go over walking the Stations of the Cross. 

The first station is at a location that is presently a Muslim school. Understandably, we combined Station 1 and Station 2, commencing to pray in a plaza outside the Church of the Flagellation.

The church has carved friezes depicting elements of the Station, and of Christ's passion. This is the left-hand frieze.

Station 3 and Station 4 are about 8 feet apart. Y'all will notice that because the Passion of Christ is a central element throughout all Christian groups, there are a lot of different shrines, monasteries, etc., throughout the area of the Stations. The souk, the marketplace, grew up around and between all of these things so the collection of shops, restaurants, churches, and so on is basically an organic whole.

Our group was far from the only glob of people standing/kneeling in the ways of the souk. The other folks just make their way around the groups. Our guide had stressed the need for us to STAY TOGETHER so we did. It was really tempting to observe the many shops as we passed, and the many side alleys. But we behaved.

Here, outside the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we prayed all four of the final stations. The actual locations are inside the church. We were early compared to many, but the lines were already voluminous with the many pilgrims. (Estimated actual time in the line was maybe a couple of hours? Plus another hour for those of us that went up to Golgotha at the end. That part is being saved for another post as this one already has a lot of photos.)

In the center of all these heads is the Stone of Anointing, where the ladies did their rush job of cleaning and anointing the body of Jesus before putting Him into the (borrowed) tomb and running back to a place to stay over the Sabbath. (Work and travel on the Sabbath--Saturday--was strictly forbidden, and the day began at Friday's sundown.)

The moving mob-that-was-a-line passed another area of devotion. Various people were lighting candles  under the baldachin here. I was unclear exactly why. There were some scattered seats along walls for the infirm to sit and rest for a while. Some of our group members did rest near the baldachin for a bit.

This is the Aedicule, the original shrine of the Tomb. It is not large at all! Y'all can see that it is inside the larger church. When the Christians rolled through and restored/reconstructed various things, where they found a shrine or most of a shrine, they repaired and then surrounded it with a larger, protecting building. And decorated the larger building in recognition of the shrine's meaning and dignity.

Out of sight around the corner, the line that narrowed from 15 wide to about 4 suddenly narrows again to 1. This is enforced with ropes. It is most likely the reason why the large line is so-o-o-o slow. The single file line comes around to the front of the Aedicule (on right side of photo) and enters it. A monk? priest? stands there inside and allows groups of 4 to enter and reverence the actual spot. He saw us and said "Ameriki! Krickly! Krickly!" which was clear and easy to understand. And entirely reasonable given the many pilgrims. You get about 10 to 20 seconds. Pray fast! And move out expeditiously.

Above the Aedicule there is this dome. It lights the area. The high ceilings inside the larger church help to fend off any feelings of claustrophobia, even though you're still all packed in like sardines.

One of our group members asked the guide if there is a better time as far as avoiding lines at all the shrines. He said--here's the hidden secret!--that in January it is winter locally, there is some wetter weather, and there are a lot fewer visitors. But that the wet weather is not flooding monsoons, it's very bearable. I suspect that the guides, and hotels, etc., would like to even out the visiting traffic just a little, too.

Israel pilgrimage, twelvth in series

Hello, everyone.

One minor note, the last post was a separate day from the prior one--the photo file dates corrected my memory. Oops!

The next day was quite busy, so the earliest visit of the day will have its own post.

We visited the church of the Nativity of Mary. As most of the holy sites, the actual architecture of the shrine is fairly new. (You may go back to the discussion of Gethsemane for a look at the kind of build-destruction-rebuild history that is common in the Holy Land. Not to mention the names, ahem, of any particular group that is all about destroying shrines that are older than their things. Ahem.)

Inside the upper church. (In background, another group at prayer.)

There is a staircase down into the grotto. The shrine custodians have helpfully placed a sign at the steps.

One of the images of the birth of Our Lady. St. Anna, top left, wiping her face after the labor is completed. St. Joachim, bottom, stewing outside and hoping all goes well for his aged wife.

This was the first time on this pilgrimage that I saw some handwork that I could photograph. (Much of the time the altar cloths were either not easily photographed or looked like they'd been done by machine embroidery.)

It looks like herringbone stitch filling on the lily and chain stitch for the monogram outline. This monogram would be the A-M for Ave Maria. The A legs are included in the M legs I think. The point on top, though, while it could be the echo of the lily, seems to me to certainly be the point of the A. The lily covers over all of the center parts of the monogram.

This looks like chain stitch used as filling for the IHS (Iesus Salvador Hominum, Jesus Savior of Mankind) and also for the cruciform outlines.

 This is not embroidery but a mosaic. I liked the way the fish and loaves and basket are made here. (The fish and loaves, being a reference to the miraculous feeding of the multitude, are a Eucharistic symbol.)

This is seen from a difficult angle. It appears to be a painted image on fabric, with pearls added, below the A-M monogram with a crown above, these either in couched-down metallic braid or actual braided goldwork stitching. The crown has a couple of gems added, too. A lovely image of the infant Mary.

This book on the pillow is likely the Gospels but it's not easy for me to tell. The image in the metalwork is of the Cross with Jesus crucified, and Mary and St John at the feet of the Cross. The pillow here matches one in a photo I didn't include, of a crown in a niche like the Infant Mary image above. This photo is included because of the lovely lace hanging from the altar. It might be hand crocheted, or might not, but it's lovely.

The story of the birth of the Virgin Mary isn't actually in the Gospel. It's in the contemporaneous works that are now lumped under the title of Apocrypha. It's a lovely story, which I heard once on a Great Courses set we listened to, but I don't recall it well enough to recap it here. I do remember that St. Anne and St. Joachim are the parents of the Blessed Virgin.

Israel pilgrimage, eleventh in series

Hello, everyone.

Before discussing the remainder of the day, begun in the last post, a picture that I found in the files. This is from the Church of the Last Supper. (The shrine adjacent to the Room of the Last Supper, as discussed in that post. As the Room is a historical site administered by the government, no Masses are allowed there. Masses take place in the shrine nearby.)

This modern treatment of the Last Supper, also called the Institution of the Eucharist (last of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary), shows the consternation of the disciples when Jesus altered the traditional ritual of the Passover meal. No "why is this night different from all other nights?" and so on! No wonder they were shocked. On the right we see that some were less disconcerted and more understanding how it could be that He would give them His Body and Blood to eat and drink. (This question had been raised earlier by Jesus' preaching. See John chapter 6 I think it is for more details.)

After lunch, we visited the Church of Pater Noster, the place traditionally regarded as where Jesus gave the disciples the Lord's Prayer. (Not including the phrase often added at the end, "for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" which is an eleventh century prayer that just kind of got pasted on over the years.)

 This explanatory tile picture shows the plan of the area. It is a French shrine. There are many, many tile presentations of various translations of the Our Father--well over 100 if I remember correctly.

Two of the many translations of the Lord's Prayer

The grotto where Jesus was teaching His disciples at that time. Note that there is protective glass to keep people from (a) filling the space with little notes of petition, (b) crawling in there and getting stuck or injured, (c) vandalizing the place out of pure meanness. (Remember that nut in Rome who took a hammer to the Michaelangelo Pieta statue in St. Peter's Basilica?) 

This small cave does remind me of the famous saying in the Gospel that what has been whispered in the dark will be shouted from the rooftops.

The altar in the church has the prayer in Latin.

After this we went over to the vicinity of the Garden of Olives. Partway down the hill is the site called Dominus Flevit, Jesus Wept in English. (No, this is not an exclamation of shock. It refers to an incident in the Gospel when Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and contemplated the future fate of the city as it then stood.)

There is a teardrop-shaped small church there. We didn't go inside as there was another group preparing to offer Mass. I did stand in the door, with my camera on "discreet" mode, and capture the mosaic image on the altar. "O Jerusalem, how often I have wanted to gather you unto me as a hen gathers her brood under her wings!"

At the time I thought the bird was perhaps a phoenix but now I see that it is, indeed, a brooding hen with her chicks.

We continued on down the side of the ravine that is called the Kidron Valley, some of which was a bit steep and had me zig-zagging my path down the slope. There was basically no sidewalk along there, a narrow lane of passage, a long spaced out line of clumps of people, and occasional cars. Thus very short zigs were required!

The oldest living olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane.



 The carvings of olive tendrils on the outside of the church.

An explanatory sign about the history of the church on the site. Note the repeated destructions by conquerors.

The mosaic of Jesus' Agony in the Garden, when we are told that angels came and comforted Him in His distress. (His disciples, being fed, and wined, and tired after a long day, were unable to stay awake in the dimness and keep watch with Him.)