Day Four in the Holy Land. Wednesday 18th February 2009

Now we are in the middle of this amazing journey in the Holy Land and what better place to celebrate is in Bethlehem, at the Church of Nativity, where the birth of a King and Messiah was born into a world that already didn’t want him. But he took it all for us. Hope you enjoy the rest of Bethlehem with me.

The Catholic Cathedral of St Catherine of Alexandra

This Cathedral is the main church for the Catholics in Bethlehem, as the Church of the Nativity was given to the Armean Church and Greek Orthodox, the Catholic Church needed a place to celebrate our saviours birth (you would wish they would all share the church, but no…) So the Catholic Church built a Cathedral right next the Nativity and also looked after St Jerome’s grotto (more about him soon). The Cathedral is massive with the whole theme of the church being solely based on the birth of our Lord and this is were the Catholic midnight mass is also celebrated each year, when this is celebrated most of the whole church is filled with priests, bishops and dignitaries and so most of everyone else is placed in the Nativity Square to see the mass on the big screen.

St Jerome’s Grotto

Today’s mass was celebrated in the grotto of St Jerome. St Jerome spent most of his life in this cave and is also buried here. This cave thought to be the place where the Holy Family lived after the birth (but was I not told the milk grotto was where they lived?? Anyway…) and why was he down here, he is the writer that changed the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible into Latin, but it has said he became quite heavy headed about the work he was doing and to stop himself thinking he was like God, a lion was brought into the grotto in on his orders to claim himself down and to be brought back to earth and focus on God’s task that he had for him. It’s quite strange really; I guess it allowed him to have more rrroarrr into his work…

The Church of the Nativity.

And so we arrive at the Church of the Nativity, built by St Helen (along with the Holy Sepulchre) it is very old, although covered buy a crusader church the small church is still there and looks very old and in great need of a fix up for the future. But this is part of the problem with this site, which will say what needs to be done and will actually do it!!

Ahh we Christians we really need to work together on these things…

But I got to go down underneath in to the cave, where he was born. Which was also the Inn, this place is very small and there is star which is his place of birth, it looks a bit like a fireplace with everything surrounding it. Here I had a massive feeling of thankfulness for my messiah coming into this world as a fragile baby in which us humans, humans that constantly turned against him and his love he has for us, were given his Son, his most precious thing created, to look after… now that’s grace. Also in the cave there is the place were he was placed into the manger, now from being a shepherd constantly in Christmas Eve nativity plays (thanks mum for the tea towel head peace) I knew that he was always placed into a manger, but why? It wasn’t until actually being there that I got it!! It not because there was nothing else to place him in, but Jesus right from his birth became food for the world… cool ahe!!

Bethlehem University

The last stop on out Bethlehem visit, was to a beacon of hope to a city where hope is dying. This beacon of Hope is the Da La Salle Brothers Catholic University, this place was truly inspiring. An even cooler thing about this University is that the new vice chancellor Brother Peter Bray comes from New Zealand and had been a part of my home parish in Tawa, Wellington!! Before he was given the job at the university. We had been in contact before I arrived in the Holy Land so he knew that I was going to be arriving for lunch. Anyway we where given a full campus tour, it has an amazing chapel which is dedicated to the child innocents with amazing pictures of known child martyrs and paintings of heavenly children. We where then given the change to meet and greet four students from the university and to find out a bit about their struggles living in Bethlehem, the security wall, the conflicts, being a Christian, being a Muslim. But what was amazing that in the University there is no problem between each of the faiths, they living and working together, heaven on earth I say!!

We then went onto have lunch with those students and a couple of the brothers including having lunch with my Brother friend Peter, it was awesome catching up with him and congratulating him and encouraging him as his task ahead is massive, Bethlehem is in a very hard situation at the moment and his students need a lot of support, as a lot of them need to go through the Israeli check points in and out of the city, so wait up to three hours each way!!!

[ I found this report of a check point wait, have a look: www.eappi.org/en/news-events/ea-reports/r/article/4566/checkpoint-watch-at-bethl.html]

So as a Christian I feel compelled to support all who are stuck in this town and the ones that have to travel in and out everyday. The freedom that I so easily have in my life is taken away from the people that live and work in a town where freedom was born.

www.bethlehem.edu is their website, support the people within the walls and especially this beacon of Hope Bethlehem University and if you ever get to come to Bethlehem please visit them!!

.

St Peter in Gallicantu.

Yes at last we where back to this amazing church with no police stopping the road entrances and I am very pleased that we didn’t miss this spot as it became the most amazing churches in my whole of the Holy Land pilgrimage. Gallicantu means ‘cock crow’ as this is the place where St Peter denied Jesus three times and Jesus himself was tormented, questioned and imprisoned before going to Pontus Pilate in the morning. Now if you are going to the Holy Land this is certainly a place not to be missed. The church it self is awesome, built by the Assumptionist Fathers it is covered in one massive colourful mosaic, represent most of the colours represent things within the church towards e.g. forgiveness, the Holy Spirit. I just stood mesmerized at this ceiling, the stories it had on its walls and with this visit I had a great since of forgiveness, and even thou it’s where Jesus persecuted and imprisoned below, and all I had to say is ‘thank you’. The next level brings you to the place where St peter Denied Jesus three times and here you can see the prison chambers below. Then you walk down again into the chambers, this place brought me back to the garden in Gethsemane, a lot of us went down into the prison, and nobody could speak, even my self. Just the know that my lord was down was… no words could really be said, some just read some scripture to help up reflect, we then went out onto the gardens of the church, in this area they found steps dating back to Jesus’ and this stair way is where Jesus took his down the valley and up to the mount of olives before he was arrested, and these same steps he was taken up to the High Priests house to trailed and imprisoned (now where St Peter in Gallicantu is built on top of).

.

And this is where I leave the eternal city, the city of God, the city that is History, but it’s a City where if peace was to truly reign on this God given earth, it must reign in these city walls first… I wait until that day happens.

Paradise, I mean Galilee here I come. You will find out so why….

The trip to Galilee.

We travelled up through the Jordon Valley from near the Dead Sea, going through a lot of Israeli check points, and dissolved tanks by the road aiming at Jordon. But also a lot of Holy Land produces e.g. Dates, Almonds and the river in the distance of course.

Baptismal Vows: Renewed!!

We made a visit at this most famous river, the river Jordon. The place where Jesus was baptised is not really known, but the Baptist Church in America and the Israeli government have created a baptismal area for Christian pilgrims to renew their vows or to be first baptised!! The place was quite when we where there, but there where people dressing up in these white clothes and being fully immersed. For me I was just down to blessing myself with the water, as with most of the pilgrimage group. But my good friend Jeff striped off (that’s down to his jeans I mean) and had a dive!! I think I might off if I was prepared, but seeing these four massive rats swimming across the river defiantly put me off. The place it self was just like visiting a mall with a river on the side of it, as it felt very commercially run.

Paradise: Arrived

The Sea of Galilee is speech less!! This place were we are staying in was built by the Benediction order and is right close to the sea front and only a couple minutes walk from the mount of beatitudes, the loves and fishes miracle and the primacy of St Peter. I can’t wait to see everything; Day 5 is our biggest day and also my Birthday,

How could I not ask for more…