We Wander (and Wonder) From the Lord’s Prayer to the Wailing Wall

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We met Erin and Dennis for breakfast. By now I know the oatmeal is really good, so I got some of that, skipping the cheese and the deli meats and those little hot dogs that really don’t pass for breakfast sausage. Is it just me? I tried both the triangle shaped and rectangular shaped sesame pastry items to try and determine the difference, and I’m wondering if the triangular ones aren’t flakier. I decided to try some of their cold cereal as well, they have five types from Rice Krispy’s, Corn Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, Raisin Bran and a bran flake nut and fruit mix. They sure do like their Cocoa Puffs over here, because I don’t recall them being this popular in the states. They’ve been at every breakfast that we’ve had in the Holy Land! Fresh honey dripping from a honeycomb into a bowl was also available. Sharon settled for scrambled eggs and a chocolate croissant with a glass of water; while, I had the grapefruit juice that I really enjoy. I also had a slice of the olive pizza. We assembled on the bus, and as we’d been warned the day before, we had a new bus; although, the outside looked much like the previous one, we could tell it was a bit older inside. Now that’s not all bad, at least we had those nifty net bags on the back of the seat in front to stow water bottles in. We found out that there was a Mormon group that had requested not only a specific driver, but also a specific bus for the tour that they had booked. We were so glad that Levon was still with us, as he’s been a great help to Dennis with the scooter.

We entered the Old City through the Damascus Gate. The sun was directly behind the gate, making taking a picture difficult. I was now wearing my courtesy white baseball cap from George’s the travel agent for this pilgrimage. We’d been warned of pick-pockets in this area and we opted to leave valuables on the bus, as it turns out, perhaps we left too many valuables on the bus. We are on the Mount of Olives. Father David told us to watch out for people who push large panoramic cards for tourists in your face, as pick-pockets will often try to divert your attention with these while their hands relieve you of your valuables. We’re off the bus not ten seconds before we see someone selling these large panoramic cards; although, he did appear just to be selling them. To heck with the panoramic view, just take a look at the City of Jerusalem. The sky line and if filled with temples and spires and churches and mosques. Before us is the old wall of the city, some distance away on the other side of a small valley. The other side of that wall is where we will be going to visit the Wailing Wall. Before us on the left the sloping field is filled with regular rectangular stones which later upon closer look on our walk down the hill towards the old wall are tomb stones, and this whole side of a hill is filled with nothing but these.

We visited our first mystery of the day at the Church of the Ascension. This church stands on land under Muslim control in the old city. Groups such as ours are not permitted to conduct mass here; however, on the Day of the Ascension for various Catholic religions, the grounds are turned over to that church for the day. Father David recalls having attended mass on this day for the Greek Orthodox Church, and in the walled in courtyard surrounding the chapel there was nothing but wall to wall tents and much frivolity. For the Catholics, Jesus ascended into heaven from this spot, inside the chapel (where the bare rock is enshrined) under his own power in keeping with being God. Jesus, in Islam, is also an important figure, a prophet, who is lifted into heaven by the hand of God. One of the versions of the Gospel for the New Testament seems to lean towards this interpretation as well.

We visited the Church of Pater Noster and the Grotto of Learning where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer. The interior walls surrounding the church, and the hallways outside the church, and even the walls on the interior of the church including the main chapel are filled with ceramic renditions of the Lord’s Prayer in the language identified at the top of the ornate ceramic piece. So many languages are represented, including a couple of American Indian languages that I recognized in the outside court yard (Cherokee and Cree). Overhead some distance away we saw a large white blimp shaped like a side-ways tear drop beneath which dangled some small black object. Father David informed us that this is one of the security measures that the police use to do surveillance. This remotely controlled balloon uses onboard cameras to monitor the situation on the ground below, and he wondered if something had happened, or perhaps they were trying to prevent something from happening. Needless to say, Father David didn’t seem to terribly concerned, and we preferred to think that the latter must be the case. We were to find out later that both were in fact true. We started the long walk down the stone cobbled road, long since worn smooth by eons of traffic, next to the field of grave markers that we’d seen from above, past the alley leading to the Tomb of the Three Prophets. Father David then exclaims excitedly in a flustered tone that we’d never heard from him before, “Are those drones up there?” We too look skyward to see two smallish black craft approach from the distance side-by-side. He then asks a nearby vendor, “Is there extra heavy security today?” and the toothless man replied, “Always.” As the air craft drew near we started to hear the rhythmic sound of two helicopters, and Father David seemed to return to his more natural nonplussed state. Dennis had complimented him the previous day for having such patience with some of the pilgrims on this tour, nothing seems to faze him in the least. No question, no matter how ridiculous it might seem, or how many times it’s asked seems to garner anything but a broad smile and a cheerful response. No problem, in this land of problems, is too big, or too complicated, that a peaceful solution can’t be found. But drones, obviously, are another thing.

We continued walking and ultimately arrived at the Church Where “Jesus Wept”. Should you ever play a trivia game that asks what the shortest verse in the Bible is, ‘that’ is it: “Jesus Wept.” Outside the church was a small narrow garden ringed by a waist high black wrought iron fence. I nearly reached out to hold on the top railing of the fence until I spotted the coil of barbed wire strung above it. Not all of the pilgrims were as fortunate as I and blood was drawn more than once. We continued the downhill trek and the hill is steep enough that Dennis needed to control the speed of Erin’s scooter down the hill. Then this narrow ancient pathway, over which we had seen nothing but foot traffic was used by a car going down the steep narrow grade. Then another car, this one with blue flashing police lights. The caravan of cars continued, interspersed with motorcycle policemen, and again with blue flashing lights. We all wondered if this had anything to do with the eye in the sky. The caravan was forced to slow enough to allow Father David to ask what is going on. He reported over the whisperers that the President of Israel had come to The Old city and that this was the reason for the heightened police presence and security monitoring. I think we all felt a little bit better. So first, what happened, the president came to town; and, second, they were taking steps to prevent anything from happening.

Our next visit was the Church of the Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed the night before his arrest. Then on to the Church of All Nations where the rock that Jesus prayed on in Gethsemane is in front of the alter. This is where we celebrated mass today, and for anybody who was wondering, the “Singing Nun” has been reunited with her guitar. And just in time because the large organ pipes to the right of the altar could not have helped her today, as the organ is being repaired. Even Dennis came to mass today, probably because there was no nearby bus driver to have coffee with. The way he figures it, now Erin is really on the hook for going to the next Star Trek convention.

After the mass we finally got on board the bus for a short ride to the Christmas Hotel for lunch, once again served buffet style. I enjoyed the baked chicken; but, they only served legs and thighs. Sharon didn’t care for the chicken, I think her words were “It’s yucky.” So all that she did like, again, was the potatoes. And the chocolate mousse served in the largest widest glass bowl that I’ve ever seen. She liked the chocolate mousse, but did they have to sprinkle coconut over the top of it? She was careful to avoid the topping, and although she says she liked it, she still wondered “Are you sure this is chocolate mousse?” Doesn’t the Bible have a name for someone like this: Is it, “Doubting Thomas”?

After lunch the bus dropped us all off at the top of the hill where we would walk down to the Wailing Wall. For Dennis and me, that meant carrying the scooter down many flights of stairs. We eventually did reach the bottom. We were given about thirty minutes to spend at the wall. Erin and Sharon had already pre-written their petitions on a piece of paper. Sharon had wondered if it would be alright to write them all on a single sheet of paper, of do they need to written each on a single scrap of paper. They both went with the full sheet approach; but, Sharon later found that it isn’t so easy stuffing a folded up full sheet in between the cracks along with all of those other pieces of paper that are already there. Men and women approach the wall separately and segregated by a physical barrier, the men on the right and the women on the left. The men have a wide expanse of the wall to approach, while the woman must queue in a long line to approach a comparatively narrower section of the wall. I didn’t need to wait to go over and touch the wall, and had plenty of time for taking pictures. We had been warned, that to approach the wall your head must be covered, and a baseball cap is okay. Before leaving the bus several baseball caps were grabbed from overhead storage to ensure that nobody would be left out. And the other thing that we’d been warned about was to remove any visible crosses. The Wailing Wall is in the Jewish sector of the Old City and it wouldn’t be good to be flaunting Catholic symbols in a place of such reverence where feelings of faith run so strong, especially given the history between these two groups.

As we were leaving we headed towards the exit, and spotting the revolving security turn gate with a horizontal arm extending in three directions from the vertical central post and repeated up the height of the pole to eight feet, Erin alerted “Lake City, We have a problem.” There was no way the scooter could navigate that security gate. Dennis and I both knew that without a solution to this problem, it would mean carrying the scooter back up all of those steps. Fortunately, there was also a locked regular glass door that could be buzzed open.

At the start of our pilgrimage, someone on our bus to Chicago asked, “What do you call an Archbishop, anyway? I mean, how do you address him?” That question evidently was answered for us when our Archbishop met another Archbishop at a formal ceremony unique to this particular pilgrimage, to honor several of its pilgrims who are members of the Knights of Columbus (or married to someone who is) and who partake a pilgrimage that meets certain conditions of the order; which, this one does. The gist is, after being so honored recipients are entitled to wear a pin signifying that they made such a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. During the pleasantries, we got to hear the Archbishops address each other as “Your Excellency”, so I guess that answers that question. The Archbishop hosting this ceremony took the opportunity to provide an insight into the political conditions of the region. He noted how twice before things have spiraled out of control, and this past summer again things came to a full simmer. Papal visits in the past have quelled the situations then, but only briefly, and he conceded that what happened in the past was inevitable. There is so much hatred and that is not going to change anytime soon. We prayed for peace.

We walked back to the hotel, or in Erin’s case, she scooted back to the hotel and were there before 4:30 PM. Sharon worked on the blog and pictures; while, I took a much needed nap. We waited for Erin and Dennis in the lobby at 6:30 PM, and wondered if perhaps they’d gone to the Shroud of Turin presentation at 6 PM. We did start dinner and they later joined us, having waited in their room for the workman to repair the fan in their bathroom, which made a deafening sound. Sharon again found some potatoes to eat and crème puff pastry was pretty good. It was so good in fact I went back and had another. The chocolate fudge ball of course was coated in coconut. Sharon headed off for the Holy Hour at the Church of All Nations (the one with the rock that Jesus prayed on in Gethsemane). They started having people board the Blue bus thinking they’d only need one but more people came then expected so both buses made the trip. Luckily this time we parked near the church and didn’t have to walk down the entire hill again. Though we joked that we’d have to walk back up this time. Not sure many of us would have been able to make that trip. We were joined at the church by a large group from Spain. We were told that things would be done in Spanish and then in English but only one reading and prayer were done by Father Ken. Everything else was in Spanish so it wasn’t obvious what was being done. After the readings the Blessed Host was exposed and there was time for quiet prayer or to go to confession as there were several priests set up around the back of the church. The purpose of the Holy Hour was related to the apostles who Jesus found asleep after he prayed here and he asked them could they not stay awake with him just one hour. It was a very nice experience.

I ordered a bottle of Pellegrino and planned to drink most of it in the room writing the blog. It’s 5:30 AM in the morning, I just finished off that bottle of Pellegrino, and the blog is up to date. Sigh.

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