Day 2: Prayer and Penance

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your Children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Mt 23: 37)

 

This was the view I had from the Chapel  Dominus Flevit (The Lord cried). Jesus lamented over Jerusalem before entering into it one last time to die there.

 

 

This stunning panorama captures the view Jesus had of Jerusalem as he lamented. The Dome of the Rock is now where the Temple was then.

 

I began the day considering the Death of Our Lord in Calvary located in the Holy Sepulchre Church. There I met a saintly German contemplative, Corina, whom I had the grace to pray with daily since I have arrived. I went to confession just a few paces away from the Crucifixion Altar. I imagined that this confession was the closest one I would have to Jesus' Death since He had really died there. Mass was in Latin and I enjoyed returning back to the Gregorian Chant. Two of the men at mass begin ridiculing the priest and the sacred worship and had to ushered out by guards. I'm glad I hadn't seen them myself as I would have been highly tempted to do more than usher them.

 

I visited the Dormition Tomb of Mary which was located Near Joseph  and Anne and Joachim's tombs. Where has Mary been all this time any way?

 

 

I came back to Gethsemani and this time I had the chance to enter into a grotto believed to be where Jesus was arrested. I could see how it could be there and not in the Garden of Gethsemani Church since he was "a stone's throw away as he prayed with greater intensity" (Lk 22).

 

I walked down to the Pool of Siloam and climbed up onto the City of David. I got to see where David would have looked down upon Bathsheba as she bathed and later committed adultery.

 

 

Along the way was Absalom's tomb as well as some other ancient monuments.

 

I walked through the Muslim burial site along the Temple/Jerusalem Wall to let the Jews know (as they believe that the Messiah will be entering into Jerusalem through that wall) that He would not be a "Clean" Jew by walking in.

 

The Ramadan worshippers were legion. I felt that I had returned to Rome to some measure. It felt like a Papal Mass exodus but in this case with an even older city.

 

 

After spending  more time in Prayer at Calvary and enjoyed a respite and some long needed food: Hummus and their version of Tortillas: Flat Bread. I could see Jesus eating this bread. 

 

I went back out to see the Sabbath beginning at the Western Wall. It was crawling with all sorts of Jewish men and women. I joined in in Worship and prayed some. Later I joined in at a Local Synagogue but found myself nodding off and heading back home. All in a day's work in God's Holy City.