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.
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