It has been a dream of mine for about 20 years to spend an extended period of time in the Holy Land: I could not imagine anything more desirable than studying, praying and reflecting on Scripture in general, and on the life of Jesus in particular, in the land where it all took place. The opportunity finally came my way from 10th February to 3rd June 2002.

The following is the text of a series of ‘common’ letters I sent as emails to friends while in the Holy Land in an effort to describe some of what was happening in my life. The emails, in turn, are the summary of a detailed diary of events which I kept while there. You will notice that some numbers are omitted, which is not a mistake. That is because the number on the email corresponds with the bulk of that email being drawn from a diary entry for a particular week bearing that number.

Sometimes the reality does not match the dream. In my case I found that the reality surpassed the dream. I thank the Lord for the privilege of this time.  

I was connected to the internet here last Friday, so I am now able to send a few messages. By the way, my own email address is the same as at home, as you can see.

The flight was very pleasant and I arrived at Tel Aviv at 6.10a.m. on Sunday, 10th February, even before the scheduled time. I was dropped at the gate of St. Peter in Gallicantu, where I am staying in Jerusalem, just after 8.00a.m. This is the reputed site of where Caiaphas lived and where Jesus was questioned overnight by him –and so also where Peter denied Jesus. When the sister brought me to my room, would you believe, I heard the cock crow!  

The foundation here is that of the Assumption order, a French foundation, and it has both a monastery and a convent. The complex has been renovated completely in the past 10 years. The church is reckoned to be the fourth church built on the same site. The priests, brother, and three of our group live in the main house. Four of our group, including myself, will be staying in what the sisters call, the annex. Once it was converted stables; now it is a wing at the side of the convent, and it was completely renovated nine years ago. The rooms are a bit small but they are en suite and have central heating. I also have a phone in my room which is very handy.

The house is magnificently located and there is a marvellous view from the balcony. The building is actually on Mount Zion. The view from left to right takes in some of the present city walls and Jewish quarter, the Temple Mount, the Garden of Gethsemane and the Kidron valley, the City of David, the circle of hills right around, including Mount Olivet, the Potters’ field in the valley directly beneath, with the mountains of Moab barely visible in the background. As I look across the Kidron valley to the hills opposite me the houses seem to rise, one stacked on top of another. For all the world it reminds me of a painting –of the houses of the Pueblo Indians. And every few hours the scene seems to change with the variation in lighting. The first reading for the Mass on my second morning here told of Solomon bringing the Ark of the Covenant from the City of David to the sanctuary in the new Temple he had built. It was moving to ponder that my eyes were now looking down on the site where all this had happened –right outside my window. I feel really privileged to be here.

I get up at about 6.45a.m. every morning and at that I am far from being the first to do so. The problem is that on the first night I was told that breakfast is self-service and is available any time between 6.00 and 8.00a.m.! Why is the whole world out of step with the Irish perception of civilised waking hours? Anyway I hear the Muslim call to prayer before 5.00a.m. every morning.

The weather has been fairly mixed since I arrived. For the first four days we had quite a lot of rain. Since then it has been mainly sunny, sometimes fairly warm and at other times cool. There is quite a steep climb from where we are staying to the main road, a distance of about 400 yards. The old city is quite beautiful with narrow streets. By law everything has to be finished in Jerusalem limestone. It is the same in the buildings and underfoot on the pavement. There are many quaint little shops to be seen, but no pilgrims or tourists to buy anything.

There are seven of us staying in St. Peter’s, four of us Irish. We have about a 25 min. walk every day into the old city to where we are doing the Biblical renewal course, where lectures begin at 8.30a.m. In the morning the streets are practically deserted but there is a bit more activity when we are returning around 12.30p.m. There are 36 in all taking the programme, from all parts of the world. The highest number is from Ireland –nine in all. After that the biggest numbers come from Korea, Sri Lanka, India and Australia. We have a few from South Africa and after that we have single members from several other countries. While it is early days yet the programme is shaping up to be very good.

We are attending lectures on the Bible in a place called Ecce Homo. It is about a 20/ 25 min. walk from where we are staying. In the streets in the morning you have refuse trucks and tractors passing along (which are, amazingly, only about four feet wide so as to be able to get through the streets), as well as hand-carts, and one morning we saw a donkey with a basket at either side, just like old times at home. Recent archaeological digs have discovered that underneath Ecce Homo is a water cistern constructed by Herod to provide water for the Temple and for his soldiers in the nearby fortress. Also in the basement of Ecce Homo they have found a Roman pavement where etchings can be seen of a game of dice, called the Game of the Kings, which the Roman soldiers played to honour the feast of the god Saturn. In this game a prisoner was crowned king for the day but at the end he was likely to be put to death. By tradition this is the pavement on which Jesus stood when he was condemned to death by Pilate and the building takes its name from the Latin version of Pilate’s words, ‘Behold the Man’. The lectures on the Bible which we are attending there are excellent. What is special is that some of our lecturers are either practising Jews (who talk on the Old Testament) or converts to Catholicism from Judaism. This means that they give us a very distinctive point of view that is helpful in understanding the world of Jesus.

We are mostly free at weekends which gives us a great chance to catch up on seeing places we want to visit. Last weekend a group of us went to the Garden of Gethsemane and the church there. We then climbed the Mount of Olives, calling in to the Dominus Flevit church where Jesus is reputed to have wept over Jerusalem. This is a beautiful location, looking across at the present old city. As we continued to climb we called in to see the tombs of the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, which are in a large underground cave. One day in the first week I paid a visit to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. The last time we were here (on the 1998 pilgrimage) there were huge crowds going up to Calvary and we were fortunate to get into the Holy Sepulchre at all. That day I was astonished to find that we could just walk freely into both. We were on our own on Calvary and we had to wait only a minute for a few who were in the tomb to come out. Perhaps it was too easy!  

So many things are near us here. Only a few minutes walk is the Cenaclum, the reputed Upper Room where Jesus celebrated the Last Supper and the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles. Near that is the Dormition Church where Mary is reputed to have been laid to rest before she was assumed into heaven. However, locations like this latter one are doubtful. Really, nothing in the old city is very far from us. As I’ve said before, I can see the old Temple Mount from the room where I am sleeping. A few of us visited the Wailing Wall there the first Friday evening and I was amazed at the number of Jews who came there at the beginning of their Sabbath. I was even more surprised when some of the groups began to sing and dance, mostly in a kind of circle. It all reminded me (both music and dance) of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. But there was a great sense of joy and celebration about their prayer which surprised me.

We have an excursion each week. The first of these was on Ash Wednesday. We took a trip round the present city walls and then round the hills that surround Jerusalem. There were many beautiful views of the city from various angles, and of course we learned a lot about the history of the city. It is strange to be actually able to look at places you read about in the Bible from 2,000 to 3,000 years ago: the Valley of Gehenna (the image used for hell), the Valley of Jehoshaphet (where the Last Judgment is supposed to take place). We drove along by the Mount of Olives where, according to Jewish, Christian and Moslem tradition the resurrection from the dead will first take place. It has often had up to 16 churches, indicating the reverence in which it was held as the meeting point of heaven and earth. We passed the place where excavations now show many of the influential families of Jerusalem were buried in ancient times –one recent discovery is the tomb of ‘Joseph Caiaphas’!.

The walls of the old city of Jerusalem enclose about 250 acres. But of course the present city is much larger and has a population of about 700,000 people. We were also given some understanding of ‘the West Bank’. There was a dividing line from 1949 to 1967 between Israeli Jerusalem and Jordanian Jerusalem. In 1967 the Israelis captured all the Jordanian section of Jerusalem and continued down to the Jordan river. Since that time this tract of land is called, the West Bank. The Israelis put the area under military rule, but they decided to join the two parts of Jerusalem (but without granting citizenship to the inhabitants of East Jerusalem, which means, e.g., that they don’t have the right to vote). It was not ‘returned’ to the Palestinians with the rest of the West Bank. As the rain continued heavily we visited the outdoor model of Jerusalem. This is a model of the city of Jerusalem at about 60 AD, very much as things would have been at the time of Jesus, and includes the Temple built by Herod. It gives a great over-view of what the city was like then.

Like any new place there is a lot involved in trying to get to understand something of the culture, even the Catholic approach to things. One Sunday morning after Mass Fr. Gilles, one of our hosts in St. Peter’s, took us to the dwelling area of the ultra Orthodox Jews. They go to the Wailing Wall every day. As a general rule, the men wear a white shirt, black suit, black skullcap and black hat –although the Jews from eastern Europe wear headdress that looks like the circular brush of an industrial vacuum cleaner! The women must cover their heads, often with a wig! As all they do is to study the Scriptures, they don’t work and are supported by the Social Services and money from abroad. As a result the area is quite poor. They don’t serve in the army and they believe in a Jewish confessional state. On entering the district from one direction there was a banner across the street asking people not to enter as visitors, but to respect their traditions and their observance of the law of G-d (reflecting the old Biblical tradition of not using the full name of God) and the Torah.

It was as we exited from here that Gilles became very political. Gilles is a French Canadian from Quebec and tends to speak loudly, and in the end I felt lucky that we returned home without being arrested. At one stage we saw a large queue of people. Gilles told us they were Palestinians waiting in line for some kind of permit, and they could be here all day –he said they need permits for everything. This was the Israeli method of control and of making little of them. At another stage we saw an Israeli soldier stopping a Palestinian and bringing him across the street to show his permit. Gilles spoke loudly about the discrimination and racism ‘just like South Africa used to be’. Later on we passed a large group of young Israeli soldiers and Gilles spoke well within their hearing about the way in which they are brainwashed into seeing danger everywhere and about the need to be on guard at all times. All young Israelis have to spend two years in the army and this, he said, is where they are brainwashed.

After our tour we entered the old city by the Damascus gate. This is the Muslim Quarter. There was a market outside the gate and also in the narrow streets inside. The place was alive with crowds and trading, the traders shouting their wares at the top of their voices. Later that afternoon two of us went up to see the Cenaclum. We first went to the reputed Tomb of King David downstairs and then to the Cenaclum or Upper Room, reputed site of the Last Supper and Descent of the Holy Spirit. After that we strolled up to the Jaffa gate. But before long we both decided we would like a beer. We were approached by a Palestinian and he brought us to a sheebeen up a back street. There were a few there playing cards. The owner gave us beer at six shekels a bottle (about €1.50). They were all quite friendly and we were happy at having made a breakthrough at ‘enculturation’. So another side of life here is beginning to look up!

I have also met up with Fr. Fergus Clarke, a classmate of mine from Maynooth days, who joined the Franciscans here a few years ago. The day I met him he introduced me to the other Franciscans and then took me into their own living quarters (a place most people don’t know even exists) which is upstairs in the Holy Sepulchre building, for a cup of coffee. I got a tour of the whole area. There is a kind of colonnade all around the upper section of the dome and we were able to look down on the structure that surrounds the tomb. Fergus had many intriguing stories of the politics that surrounds the relations between the different Christian groups which use the Holy Sepulchre –something many people find a scandal but it also reflects basic human nature. The big thing that governs relations between the Churches there now is an agreement worked out in the 1850s called, ‘the status quo’. All the Catholic liturgies still have to be in Latin because that was the language used at that time.

I was helping Anton, our chef, with the wash up after supper one evening and I asked him if he was married. Anton is an Armenian Christian, speaks Arabic and lives in the old city. His English isn’t great –though it is a lot better than my Arabic! He told me he is not married, and mentioned how this seemed unusual to Arabs. But I could gather some of the difficulties for people like him. He said at one stage, ‘Where will I live? Everything is owned by Jews first and then Muslims.’ He went on to say that, for this reason, many of his people are emigrating to Canada.

The day of our excursion to the Dead Sea, Masada and Qumran, I was up at 5.30a.m. and we caught the bus at the top of the road at 6.30. We first visited Masada. It is a fascinating place. It was King Herod (well known to us) who carried out the major fortifications here. It is a flat area on the top of a sheer rock in the desert, but Herod had gardens, two palaces, a swimming pool and kind of sauna, and generally a luxurious complex there. It was later defended by the Zealots as the last place where the Jews held out against the Romans in the rising of around 70 AD. We also visited Qumran, the site in the desert where the Essene community lived around the time of Jesus. The main point our guide made is that this is the society into which Jesus was born and lived his life, and an understanding of this society will give us a much better understanding of the Gospels. I have to say that this, in fact, also seems to be the main point in the lectures we are doing. In between our visits to Masada and Qumran we stopped at Ein Gedi, an oasis and small resort on the Dead Sea. Here we were on the lowest point on the surface of the earth. We had our packed lunch there. Some of us went for a swim. For me, just like the last time I ‘swam’ in the Dead Sea, a wave came and the water went into my mouth and up my nose. The sensation is suffocating and burning –the water of the Dead Sea, having many minerals and being 10 times the density of ordinary sea water, is dangerous if swallowed. Nearly everybody who swam got some cuts on the stones as well. So, for me, the Dead Sea is not all it is cracked up to be –and I would prefer Ballybunion any day!

As I mentioned before several of our lecturers are Jewish, and almost all of them, both Catholic and Jewish, are very involved in the peace movement here. One Jewish lecturer made what was to me an extraordinary comment for a Jew: that this is now the third opportunity the Jews have got and unless they act with justice this time then they will lose the land again. (The other two times are, presumably, after the Exodus from Egypt and after the return from Exile in Babylon). It shows such a different perspective on Jewish history from ours; I realised that I have assumed there is no more connection between Judaism and God’s covenant.

One of the extraordinary things about Israel is the number of political parties. We had a Jewish lecturer with us one day who explained the situation. It seems that there are two basic divisions: religious parties and secular ones. They have totally different visions for the State of Israel. But within these two basic viewpoints there are several minor parties. The wonder is that they are ever able to get enough of these parties to agree on anything and form a government or to run the country.  

The section of the old city that is nearest to us is the Jewish Quarter. We pass along one of its streets every day going to and from lectures. One day I took a stroll up there and into a square just off my normal path. It was a totally new world, full of shops and cafés and people strolling around or just sitting down relaxing. There are also interesting archaeological sites there. The remains of the wall built by King Hezekiah in the 8th century BC are to be seen. When doing some building in the area they came across the foundations of the houses of wealthy people from the time of King Herod, including one belonging to the High Priestly family. There were some shops with very pro-Israeli advertisements and items for sale. At the end of one of the streets there was a great lookout point for the Western Wall and the excavations of the city at Herod’s period.

The conflict here is something that we are constantly aware of even if none of us has had any direct experience of it ourselves, fortunately. We regularly hear ‘bangs’ at nighttime, but it is difficult to know if these are crackers or gunfire –they are ‘big’ into celebrating here with crackers. When we were here a few weeks Fr. John O Callaghan, who is next door to me in St. Peter’s, and I decided to take our courage in our hands and go into West Jerusalem (the new city, Jewish section). John was anxious for another pilgrimage, viz., to find a pub that shows English Premier soccer matches. We walked to the area around the city centre. The security levels were tighter in all of this area. We eventually found a pub that had been recommended to us. It looked a bit of a ‘dive’ but we ventured in. The bar attendant was quite friendly: a Jew from Mississippi who ‘became confused’ as to what he was while attending Baptist school and church. They had no English soccer but he told us that they had a ‘happy hour’ from 5.00 to 8.00p.m. so that we could get pint bottles of Carlsberg for 6 shekels. It was very quiet there until about 7.30p.m. and then small groups of young and youngish people began to arrive. Obviously they were a regular clientele, just like some of our local pubs have in Ireland.

At some stage I saw a policeman at a car outside the door with a sniffer dog. The bar man said that this was regular practice. He then proceeded to tell us about all the bombs that had gone off in the area in the last few months. This flow of information was regularly punctuated with John commenting, “It’s a nice place, but it’s a pity about the location”. It must have been around 8.00p.m. when we noticed an increased police presence outside. The barman told us this was unusual and began to act a little nervously. I didn’t feel in the least perturbed –beer is a great thing! There were police and squad cars and vans and cameramen. Then the consensus was (correctly) that Hilary Clinton was visiting the restaurant. I found myself back in the same area the next day for lunch. It was with another friend, Fr. Fergus Clarke, who was a class -mate of mine in Maynooth but has since become a Franciscan and is attached to the Holy Sepulchre Basilica. As well as going to the odd pub and restaurant we have also gone to see a few films in a cinema that is near us here. But we are aware of the high-risk times in Western Jerusalem and would never venture in there at those times.

On one of our Wednesday excursions we went to Ein Karem which marks the site of the Visitation. It is a beautiful place. We first visited a church which is reputed to mark the site of the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah. We then visited the Church of the Visitation. It was built in the early 1930s and it has beautiful mosaics of Mary and episodes from her life. We then went on to Bethlehem. We arrived in Manger Square. The Basilica of the Nativity is the oldest church in the Holy Land, being built in the 6th century (the first one was built in the 4th century by Constantine, and some of the remnants are still to be seen). The other churches in the Holy Land were destroyed by the Persians when they invaded in the early 7th century. This church was spared because they regarded the depiction of the Wise Men as being in Persian dress (this painting is not now in existence). There are various Christian denominations here, just as in the Holy Sepulchre. We were then joined by our Christian Palestinian guide, Charlie. Charlie explained how we can be quite sure of the authenticity of the site of the Nativity. Before leaving us Charlie asked us to pray for his people. He is a Catholic and is studying for his doctorate as well as lecturing. He told us that Christians in Bethlehem now number only 2%. Due to lack of work and the Israeli occupation many of his people are emigrating. Those who are still living in Bethlehem have made a decision to remain.  

The Franciscan Stations of the Cross take place every Friday afternoon and I have attended them fairly regularly. They begin in the square of a Muslim school which was formerly the site of the Antonia Fortress (some of it the original structure) built by Herod. It is possible to look out from here on to the Temple Mount, which, of course, is the whole reason Herod first built it and the Romans later used it. The Stations take the Via Dolorosa through the open streets and end at the tomb in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. It is simple but impressive. Another site nearby is St. Anne’s, which some hold is the birthplace of Our Lady, and the Pool of Bethesda, made famous by Jesus’ cure of the man who had been crippled for 38 years in Jn 5. The original sections of the pool, which is huge, date probably from before the Exile and it was constructed to bring water to the Temple for the ablutions. The church of St. Anne was built by a branch of the Crusaders in 1130, but as they were a diverse group nothing in the church is symmetrical (this put me thinking about the castle in Askeaton where the same is the case, and the link with the Knights Templar). At one stage it became a dump. The Turks gave it as a gift to France after the Crimean War. The restoration and excavation works began at that time.

 

One Saturday a group of us visited the Israel Museum. It was quite an experience. We were given a tour of the archaeological section, which included items from up to 1.5 million years BC. I was amazed to see a beautiful glass bowl from around the time of Christ, and I thought glass was not invented until the Middle Ages; there was even some piece of glass from c. 600 BC. At the end of the guided tour we went to see the Shrine of the Book. The highlight of this part of the museum is the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Shrine of the Book holds the largest collection by far of these in existence, including a complete text of Isaiah on one continuous scroll. While only one section of this is on display there is a facsimile of the whole scroll in a circular drum at the centre of the exhibition.

Greetings and blessings from the Holy Land. It is a land that needs many prayers at the moment, but perhaps by the time you read this some progress in the paths of peace will have been made through the efforts of the American envoy, General Zinni. You are familiar through the News with the ongoing conflict here. We have had first hand experience of this through the sound of sirens, planes overhead, and even bombs being dropped. We often hear bombing from the direction of Bethlehem, which is only six miles from us. Unfortunately, the fighting has been quite bad there again in the last few days. Our first concern is for the people on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian, Jews and Muslims, who are suffering. Christians are often caught in the middle, wondering how best to promote justice and peace. It seems to be such a contradiction to have conflict in the Holy Land. But then, historically, it has always been so. We only have to think of the time of Jesus himself with the Roman occupation, the Jewish uprisings, and the bitterness and hatred.

It may seem strange but we have hardly been affected at all by the conflict, apart from some travel restrictions. We are not in any great danger. There is even a sense in which we have benefited from the troubles because of the lack of pilgrims and tourists. Unlike 1998 when we had the parish pilgrimage here and we had to queue up for everything, I have found I can now walk directly into the holy sites. One day last week I visited Calvary and the tomb one after the other, and I lit a candle for the people of the parish of Askeaton and Ballysteen within the tomb of Jesus itself. I am greatly enjoying the Biblical Renewal Programme and my stay in this special city. The course is quite intensive but worthwhile. The lectures are held in the heart of the old city. I am staying just outside the old walls, on the reputed site of where Jesus was brought before Caiaphas on Holy Thursday night, and beside the ancient steps on which Jesus probably walked when going from the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane.

One day each week we make an excursion to a place of interest. In this way I have been to the hills surrounding Jerusalem, including the Mount of Olives, Ein Karem (where Mary visited Elizabeth and where John the Baptist was born), Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, including Masada (where the Jewish revolt held out longest against the Romans around 70 AD) and Qumran (where the Essene monks lived). Last week we spent two days (and one night) in the Negev Desert and the Wilderness of Tzin. It was a very special experience. But what I am really looking forward to is Holy Week. The Palm Sunday procession begins at 2.30p.m. at Bethphage, comes down the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley and into the old city (given that we are two hours ahead of Ireland it will be roughly at the time of last Mass in Askeaton). You will be hearing of all of these places in the Passion narrative. For Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday I have signed in to concelebrate Mass at the Holy Sepulchre Basilica, i.e. at the tomb of Jesus. Because the church is shared by Catholics with five other Eastern Christian Churches, those ceremonies will be early in the morning. Appropriately, the local Catholics come here to where we are staying for a vigil on Holy Thursday night. I hope to make the most of the privilege of being in Jerusalem this year. May I wish you a very Happy Easter and all the blessings of the Risen Lord.

One of our outings was a trip to the desert, including an overnight stay. We travelled to the area generally south of Jerusalem. The most surprising thing is that for the first part of the journey it wasn’t desert at all. In fact, it was quite fertile, much of it being under wheat. But the reason is that the Israelis have piped water to it all the way from the Sea of Galilee –and this means, in turn, that the Sea of Galilee is reducing dangerously in size. The first day we took in the Bedouin Culture museum, to give us some understanding of these desert people. Abraham was not a Bedouin but he shared many of their ways of the desert. We were told that if your guest takes off his shoes and puts them behind him it indicates a normal visit, i.e. he is staying three and one-third days; if he leaves his shoes on the mat in front of him he is staying only a short time, i.e. four to five hours! Can you imagine? We continued on south to Be’er Sheva. The phrase, ‘From Dan to Beersheba’ indicates the importance of the place as the southern border of the ancient land of Israel. The new city of Beersheba was established by the Turks as an administrative centre. We visited Tel Be’er Sheva where the ruins of the ancient city have been excavated. Abraham visited here.

It was only at this stage that we came to what could be called real desert. Late that evening we set off to the summit of a nearby mountain where I had been asked to be the main celebrant at Mass. We were called next morning at 4.00a.m. and, after a cup of coffee ‘in our hand’ and collecting our packed breakfast, we headed directly south at 4.30a.m. for the Wilderness of Tzin. We began our trek in the desert at 5.45a.m., recalling the Exodus journey in the main. As we helped each other on some difficult climbs John O Callaghan remarked to me that it was now understandable how it took Moses 40 years to go through the desert –with the old and infirm, children and flocks. We came on some magnificent views of the desert and on one occasion we were looking down into what is known as the Great Crater, where we were treated to a variety of colours and shades, rock formations and hills. High up on the ridge of the crater, we came across a large group of Israeli teenagers accompanied by a few young adults bearing guns. Our guide explained that in 1975 a group of Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat attacked a school and shot dead over 20 teenagers. The Israeli parliament passed a law that, in future, all youth groups should be accompanied by soldiers.

We honoured St. Patrick well. On the Friday night all of us from Ireland on the course were invited to a reception hosted by Isolde Moylan, Irish Consul to the Palestinians, at her home on the Mount of Olives. She was quite pleasant, but there was a huge crowd there. It was difficult to talk but I did meet a few interesting people. I shook hands with Fr. Jerome Murphy O Connor, the Irish Biblical scholar (just for the sake of it). I met Sr. Kevin Morton, formerly from Wolfe Tone St. in Limerick, and a Sister of St. Joseph of the Apparition, now stationed in Bethlehem for the last 30 years. She told me that on the previous week she spent one night in the house attached to their school instead of going back to the convent. The university and school were shelled by the Israelis and when she got up in the morning she discovered half of the house she was staying in had been destroyed! I also met Orla Guerin, an Irish reporter for BBC World Service. We see her regularly on the news at night. John and I made the long walk home to St. Peter’s down the Mount of Olives and through the old city around midnight. We only met a handful of people on the way. We also had a good party the following night in Ecce Homo where we are doing the course and we didn’t get to bed until 5.00a.m.! Then on Sunday the community here held a celebration in honour of St. Patrick with drinks and a special lunch. My old school friend, Fr. Fergus Clarke, now a Franciscan at the Holy Sepulchre, joined us. We were also invited by the Irish ambassador in Tel Aviv to attend his party on Sunday night, but the pace had caught up with me –old age!

One day after getting on a bus a young lad (of about 20) heard us thanking the bus driver and asked me if I was English. He sounded Israeli to me and had a Jewish cap on his head, and I answered, ‘I hope you don’t think I sound like an Englishman.’ (You’d be talking about Israelis and Palestinians). Some minutes later I discovered that he is English –from Leicester. He is here for two years attending a rabbinical school and is living just off the Cardo in the old city. At a later stage I discovered that this is quite common for young Jews from all over the world.

We have become quite friendly with another Franciscan, called Fr. Athanasius, although he is a young American. He is responsible for the Catholic side of the negotiations with the other Christian groups in the Holy Sepulchre and it turned out that his uncle is a priest in Cork diocese. One day we were talking to Athanasius when we were joined by an Armenian guide who spends a lot of time around the Holy Sepulchre. He doesn’t think much of the Israelis. He maintained that the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York was a Jewish plot. As evidence he said that none of the Jews working there had gone in to their jobs that day. Athanasius told us that 80% of the Arabs here believe this. The guide also maintained that all the towns being attacked by the Israelis in the West Bank are Christian towns. This seems to be agreed by everyone, but some say it is because the Muslim Palestinians shoot at the Israelis from there and then get out, leaving the Israelis to fire back at the town. Others say that the Israelis send in a few of their own soldiers to shoot at the Israelis themselves and they then get out and the army has an ‘excuse’ to attack the town. But why Israelis would want to attack Christian rather than Muslim towns I have no idea.

As you may imagine, Holy Week was very special in Jerusalem. On the more human front I was grateful to all the people who were so thoughtful as to send me post: mostly cards, some letters, a taped message and an Easter Egg.

On Palm Sunday the procession took place over the original route. It began at Bethphage at 2.30p.m., led by a kind of colour party with the Franciscans and Latin Patriarch (i.e. the Catholic bishop) at the end. I am told that we had about 3,000 taking part (though in more peaceful times the number is closer to 10,000) and it was several hundred yards long. I found it a great experience as we wound our way to the top of the Mount of Olives and down the other side. Practically everybody carried either a palm branch, which is quite large, or an olive branch, which is much smaller. There was a great sense of joy as people waved the branches and sang in a kind of ‘organised chaos’. A group of Spaniards near us had some lively hymns while the Franciscans joined in with Latin ones. The highlight came for me as we turned in from the main road towards Lion’s Gate. The policemen and soldiers were more prominent at the corners here and I thought how similar it all must have been to the time of Our Lord. As we entered the gate there was even greater enthusiasm and the singing and branch waving gained momentum. Inside the gates a local group was playing some very modern music (presumably still hymns) with a good amplification system. The Patriarch spoke and gave his blessing. It was now about 4.45p.m. The celebration continued with local ‘peace’ songs. I can say that it was one of those experiences I will always cherish. I felt I was back at the first Palm Sunday.

On Holy Thursday the celebration of the Lord’s Supper took place in the morning! As the booklet put it, ‘because of the situation in the Holy Sepulchre the liturgy anticipates the Lord’s Supper’. So, I got up at 5.30a.m. (the morning was extremely cold, almost like snow) and arrived at the Holy Sepulchre at 6.30. The priests taking part numbered about 100. After some time the Patriarch arrived, and the ceremony began at 7.15. Most of the Mass was in Latin, but the Gospel and Prayers of the Faithful were in Arabic and the homily in French. The Patriarch washed the feet of 12 seminarians and blessed the oils. At the end of the Mass we had the procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose, which was within the tomb. The ceremony ended at 10.15a.m. We had to leave fairly promptly then as they were locking the main door of the basilica. 

That evening we went together as a group for the ceremony at Gethsemane at 8.00p.m. En route it began to rain heavily. I only had the ordinary coat and cap with me (rather than the rain gear) so I got drenched. But one bonus was that we went down into the Kidron Valley on our journey, the first time I have actually been in it as we are advised it is dangerous. The ceremony lasted an hour and had Gospel readings based on the events of Holy Thursday night. Afterwards the gate to the sanctuary was open so that we were able to go in there to the stone that Jesus is reputed to have prayed on. In spite of the bad weather a large crowd afterwards came here to St. Peter’s as is the tradition, because this is the reputed site of the trial of Jesus before the High Priest and the denial of Peter. I again found it a great privilege to be able to meditate here, in the dungeon and on the old steps. I got to bed at about 12.30a.m.

On Good Friday morning we went to the Holy Sepulchre again. The city seemed full of police and army. The basilica door opened only at 8.00a.m. with the arrival of the Patriarch, so we were there to witness it. The door was closed again shortly afterwards. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Commemoration of the Lord’s Passion took place on Calvary. It was extremely moving to be on the actual spot where the events we were commemorating took place. The ceremony began with the Patriarch bringing a ‘relic of the True Cross’ to Calvary –it was encased in a silver Cross. There were a few rituals peculiar to Calvary. The Commemoration ended at about 10.15a.m. I had been standing throughout, as were most other people, but felt no tiredness. At the end of the ceremony I got the opportunity to light five candles right at the site of the Crucifixion for family, relatives, friends and parishioners. The doors of the basilica were still locked, so we had to wait until about 10.40 to have them opened when the Patriarch was leaving. From there we went to the Antonia fortress for the start of the Franciscan Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa at 11.30a.m. This was by far the biggest crowd I have seen at the Stations, and there were several other groups before and after us having their own ceremony. At about 1.20p.m. Jerusalem was hit by a thunderstorm. The darkness, thunder and lightening were, of course, very biblical for today: ‘From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour…. At that, the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom; the earth quaked, the rocks were split…’ (Mt 27: 45, 51). And the dark pall over the sky lifted almost exactly at 3.00p.m.

On Holy Saturday the Easter Vigil took place in the morning at the Holy Sepulchre. I reached the Sepulchre shortly after 7.00a.m. The Patriarch arrived at 7.30 and the ceremony started at 7.45. The lighting of the Paschal Fire took place inside the main door. We all processed there (about 80 priests on this occasion). The ceremony ended a few minutes before 11.00a.m. Again it was good to have been there. In the introduction to the ceremony the booklet said, in relation to the Vigil: ‘In Jerusalem it takes place at the very place of the anastasis, that is, on the site of the Resurrection…. The Vigil ordinarily takes place at night but here it takes place in the morning hours due to the local situation.’ Today was a bit schizophrenic in that I didn’t know whether I was celebrating the resurrection or not. Many were not attending the Vigil until the ‘correct’ time, that night. I didn’t know whether to open the Easter Egg or not –for a finish I decided to leave it until Easter day. Then there will be no doubts!

I begin with last Sunday which was a memorable day in Bethlehem. 39 days of siege in the Basilica of the Nativity had finally ended. Having heard that all priests were welcome to concelebrate a Mass of thanksgiving and rededication at 11.00a.m. we set off from here by taxi. We expected a long queue at the checkpoint but there was none. However, we had to leave the taxi there and walk 100 yards to take the next taxi into Bethlehem. Israeli tanks were lined up by the side of the road in the check point area with soldiers busy around them. Damage to cars and buildings was evident as we approached Manger Square and we saw a good deal more of this later in the town. The windows we could see high up in the basilica were almost all broken. We entered the church without difficulty. The basilica had been totally cleaned on the previous day by local Christians. In the Franciscan area we saw where some bullets had passed right through the glass of the windows, leaving holes in them and marks on the wall. Local Palestinians were coming to see for themselves what damage had been done and we spoke to some of them. As we spoke to one Palestinian group about sharing their joy at the resolution of the situation a woman said, ‘I am sad. I am sad that the Christian leaders in the West did not support us. I am sorry I am not a Muslim. The Western leaders are too afraid of Bush and Sharon’. Another man who has a shop told me that the Israeli army had made his house its headquarters for 40 days. His family had to depend on neighbours to bring them food and water.

The church was full to overflowing. The main celebrant was a Cardinal who had come from the Vatican for the occasion. The other concelebrants were the Patriarch (i.e. the local Archbishop), the Papal Nuncio, the Custos and the Minister General of the Franciscans. The Cardinal is a real charismatic figure. At the beginning of his homily he simply raised his two hands and said, ‘Alleluia’. He had captured the atmosphere perfectly and a huge outpouring of emotion followed: the joy, relief and celebration that the Church of the Nativity, our church, had come back to us and been regained, without major damage, and that voices of worship and praise may be raised again within it. People clapped and cried. The choir began to sing a joyful ‘Alleluia’ hymn and everybody joined in, clapping hands to the beat. The Cardinal himself led all of this. His homily (in French) was very positive, with no condemnations. He ended by saying, ‘We all have to forgive one another. We all have need of one another. Let us encourage each other, because the mercy of God always reaches lower than the wretchedness of human beings can fall. With the angels in the field of the Shepherds we sing, “Glory to God and Peace to the people he loves”.’ He then said again, ‘Alleluia’, to which everyone responded as before. Towards the end of the Mass the Cardinal told us that the Pope had been in touch by telephone every day with the Franciscan Guardian in Bethlehem. And just as we were about to process out of the church he declared, ‘Let us walk the road of peace’, and pointed down the aisle.

Some weeks ago our group had a meeting with the Latin Patriarch for about 90 minutes. The diocese consists of 60 parishes with four of them in Cyprus, and a number in Jordan. He said that the traditional parishes, i.e. Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, used to have large Catholic and Christian populations but in the country as a whole the Christian population has declined to 2 %. His most interesting comments were about the local situation. He defined himself as Arab Palestinian, but says that he has not been given a vote. He says the two groups in the country are Israelis and Palestinian/Arab. The Christians are within the Arab group. From there, their task is to bear witness to their faith before the Arab Muslim majority. And they can only do that as Arabs, and by staying in the country. The Mayor of Jerusalem once asked him if Arafat would be prepared to make peace and he replied that peace was within the domain of the Israelis; they must set the conditions and Arafat can only agree. The President of Israel asked him if he (the archbishop) could do anything to bring about peace and he replied, ‘Me? It is you who must try to bring about peace’. I have heard Catholics here saying the archbishop is too partial to the Palestinian side but whether he is right or wrong he certainly has the courage to speak his mind. He says that the group of bishops had received both from Arafat and the leader of Hamas a declaration of willingness for a ceasefire and discussions, but they got no reply from Sharon.

On one of our excursions we went to Emmaus. Rather, we went to Emmaus, and to Emmaus, and to Emmaus –but not to Emmaus! The problem is that there are four possible sites for Emmaus. The oldest Emmaus in the Christian tradition is Emmaus-Imwas where a Byzantine church was built, 19 miles west of Jerusalem. The ruins of that church are still there. When the Crusaders arrived they built a church on the same site but it was not to commemorate Emmaus, but the Good Thief, and they called it after him, Boni Latruni. In this area is the Trappist Monastery of Latrun, which we visited. Our guide has this way of speaking about our being ‘hosted’ by people –I always associate that word with being given a big spread of food and drink! In this case, however, it bore some resemblance to the reality. One of the Trappists spoke to us. He said they were founded 110 years ago from France. Their lives are organised around prayer. They also devote time to study and work. They live from the fruits of their labours and they have an obligation to share some of the fruits of their work with the poor. Their main income derives from the production of wine. We had our lunch there, and the monk brought us some bottles of wine to drink with our meal (hence, for once, the appropriateness of ‘host’).

From there we went to the Benedictine monastery in Abu Ghosh where there is a 12th century church built by the Crusaders and considered by them to be Emmaus. The explanation our guide had was that older traditions were sometimes forgotten because people like the Crusaders were outsiders, not in touch with local tradition, and had to invent their own. We concelebrated Mass in the church with the monks at 10.00a.m. The community of men seemed to consist mainly of Brothers. There was also a community of about a dozen Sisters. It was all very graceful and elegant, with a lot of Gregorian Chant. The Mass was in French and lasted about 80 minutes, and that without a homily! The murals in the church were damaged in the Muslim era, but they are now being restored. They are quite beautiful, and the whole church is attractive. On the top of the hill is the site of Kiryat Yea’arim where the Ark of the Covenant rested for some years when it came back from the land of the Philistines.

Thirdly, there is Qubeibe, a 16th century Latin church under the auspices of the Franciscans. This is the ‘Emmaus’ we did not visit because it is in the ‘West Bank’, but we called here during our 1998 pilgrimage. And finally, there is Motsa, which has no churches and no shrines; in fact, there is nothing to indicate a specific Christian tradition to say Emmaus is Motsa. And yet this is the site which most scholars today consider the likely site of the original village of Emmaus. The indications are twofold. Motsa means ‘a place to go out’ (exodus) and this is particularly meaningful in the context of Luke’s story of the disciples ‘going out’ to Emmaus. Secondly, there are the remains of a road here dating to the 1st century BC. It is one of the few places where we can pinpoint a road used in the time of Jesus.

We spent a week in Galilee towards the end of April. This included our retreat. The first morning we drove straight to Nazareth. Nazareth was a small village of a few hundred people at the time of Jesus. It is now a city of about 70,000 people. It has gone from being mostly Christian to having a slight Muslim majority. We visited the Church of the Annunciation, which is built on the site where Jesus almost definitely grew up. Here we had Mass in the main basilica at 10.00a.m. Afterwards we visited the Grotto of the Annunciation downstairs. When they were building the Church of the Annunciation they discovered underneath part of the village from the time of Jesus. A guide showed us round the excavations. We went from there to the Convent of the Sisters of Nazareth. When the convent was being built they discovered it had been the burial site for Nazareth at the time of Jesus. This helped to explain what the sisters had been told when they bought the land: that ‘the righteous one’ was buried there. This may refer to St. Joseph, who is called ‘the righteous one’ in the Gospels.  

In recent years the Christian Churches came together to develop a site in Nazareth that explains our common vision of Jesus. They reconstructed a village as authentic as possible with regard to the life of Jesus. We visited the site. They had local people, all volunteers, who were dressed up like people from the time of Jesus –men, women, boys and girls. They had reconstructs of homes, farmhouse, workshop, synagogue, fields and crops. After buying this land they discovered a winepress that dates from the time of Jesus. The pressing of the grapes was a community event, so it is quite likely that Jesus as a boy would have come to this place and helped in the work.

We visited the Sea of Galilee. Peter, Andrew, James and John came from Bethsaida but we know that Peter lived in Caphernaum with his mother-in-law! We celebrated Mass at the new church in Caphernaum. This has been constructed over the site of the house of Peter, which is bigger than the average house of the time. It had one room that had received special treatment: it was a guest room with plastered walls. From an early time this room had special religious symbols on it, indicating that this is probably where Jesus stayed. I was surprised to find we were able to visit the Golan Heights, in spite of the conflict in the Holy Land at present. It gives a wonderful view of the Sea of Galilee. We also visited Mount Tabor, the possible site of the Transfiguration. There is a magnificent view from the summit, down into the Plains of Esdraelon and Megiddo. From Mount Tabor we continued to the Jordan River. Afterwards we crossed the Sea of Galilee from Tiberias in a boat. The journey took just about an hour. We stopped in the middle of the lake for a brief prayer service. From there we could see all its shores as the Sea of Galilee is really quite small. We disembarked at the far side at a kibbutz and holiday resort. There we had our lunch and, naturally, I ate one of ‘St. Peter’s fish’. It is smaller than I had remembered from my brief viewing of it the last time I was here, on pilgrimage –maybe it is a carp.

The place where we stayed for the retreat is a completely new building for pilgrims on the site of an older one. It seems that we are the first large group to stay here, and our presence was a source of comfort to all the employees! The retreat house is situated right on the shore of the lake. From my room I had a magnificent view out over the lake; two of our mornings there were particularly beautiful and I could enjoy it all to the full. The site of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes was only a kilometre to the north by road, and the site of the Primacy of Peter only a little beyond that. Waters from many hot springs flow into the Sea of Galilee in this area. This explains a lot in the Gospels. Fish sought out the hot waters, making them the best fishing grounds in the lake. The waters were also regarded as having curative properties, which explains why so many of the sick congregated in the area.

On the first morning I visited the site of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. The present church has mosaics from the 5th century Byzantine church, including one of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. On another morning five of us went to the lake shore there to celebrate Mass. On the second morning a few of us went to the Franciscan Church of the Primacy of Peter to say Mass. Afterwards one of the two Franciscans there invited us to the house for coffee. They have little to do at present. After that I spent quite a bit of time around the shore. Before Mass there was a fisherman dragging his nets into a boat just out from the shore. From what I could see, he was throwing back most of the fish. Even though I have been here only twice before, and then only very briefly each time, I have from the beginning found myself greatly attracted to the place. Now I discovered why…  

The Sea of Galilee came right up to the steps outside the church in the 1980s –now it is back almost 100 yards. I realised that the ancient steps, associated with Jesus and Peter, are right beside the church. I then discovered that this site is not only associated with the meeting of Jesus with the disciples in John 21, but it is also the place where Peter and Andrew, James and John kept their boats. It is the place where Jesus taught the crowds from the boat and then asked Peter to put out into deep water and pay out his nets for a catch. It is probably around here that Jesus often met the apostles and conversed with them. I walked the short distance to the (north) end of the beach and climbed onto the stone promontory running at right-angles to the beach and into the water. There were two fishermen beyond it. One of them was in the boat. The other was waist high in the water, lifting a net out of the sea bit by bit. He removed fish from the net whenever he found them and put them into a bag hanging from his waist. The man in the boat called to me every so often in a friendly way, e.g. ‘Hello’; ‘Look: fish’. (And it was the first time I didn’t have my cine-camera with me!) I could also hear a rushing noise and it was one of the hot springs pouring out from one section of the bank. I think I can say that this is my favourite spot in Galilee.  

On another morning we went to the Mount of Beatitudes to say Mass at the altar within the basilica (on the 1998 pilgrimage I had said it out in the open). First we visited the cave near the road, considered to be the place where Jesus often spent the night in prayer, and then climbed through the cornfields. Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea as the corn has a way of getting in everywhere and becoming like thorns. There were several thistle-like plants too. But the area is bountiful with nature: fragrant, colourful flowers both cultivated and in the wild; beautifully coloured birds full of song; fish in the lake and, surprisingly to me, shells on the shore. The greatest privilege was being able to say Mass at each site while reading the Gospel account associated with that particular site. But in fact, it is unbelievable how many of the Gospel incidents take place in this area. As someone said at the final Mass of the retreat: the Gospels will never be the same for us, having seen Galilee.

One Sunday Fergus, John and I went to Tel Aviv. I marvel at the public transport here. The minibus fare was cheap and it dropped us off at the central bus station in Tel Aviv. From there we went to the beach. We had a very pleasant day. While it was a bit breezy it was a good deal warmer than Jerusalem and the sun shone all the time we were there. We hired three chairs and an umbrella. As well as the rest I had a walk on the beach and a swim. Afterwards we took a short walk in the streets and there seemed to be plenty of shops and activity. The atmosphere was more relaxed than in Jerusalem, with much less police and army presence. One other Sunday we went there and I looked up the internet when I arrived home to discover that there had been a suicide bomber in Netanya, which is not too far from Tel Aviv –and one of my companions had been remarking on the danger of our becoming too complacent.

This year the date of the Orthodox Easter was a month later than ours. On their Holy Thursday we dropped in to the Syrian Church of St. Mark. We missed the Washing of the Feet but we were shown around. There is an early Christian tradition that this was the home of the mother of St. Mark. If so, this is where St. Peter came after his escape from prison (Acts 12: 12-16). The Syrians also claim that this is where the Last Supper took place. They have an icon of Our Lady with the Child which they claim was painted by St. Luke but this is unlikely. There was a ‘funeral bell’ tolling most of the day for the Orthodox Good Friday. I called to the Holy Sepulchre and found two ceremonies going on simultaneously. The Greeks and their Patriarch were holding a liturgical celebration in their church in the basilica and the Copts were holding theirs at the rear of the Tomb. I attended each of the celebrations for a while. Several Greeks had seats and sleeping bags with them. It seems that they more or less ‘camp’ in the Holy Sepulchre during the Easter Triduum. There were many Ethiopians in evidence in the basilica and on the streets. I decided to go in to the Chapel of Joseph of Arimathea and before I knew it I was on the ground: I had twisted over on my ankle. I suppose I was lucky I didn’t break anything. It later became swollen. One of the sisters at St. Peter’s put a bandage on it and another one brought me crutches! It was about two weeks before it came right.

On ‘Jerusalem Day’ we heard music coming that night from the Western Wall plaza and John and I went to investigate. It was interesting to see the young people in the square enjoying themselves, dancing and waving flags –and without alcohol. It was even more interesting, perhaps, to see the Orthodox Jews praying at the Western Wall beside them while all of this was going on.

One of our excursions took us to the Judean lowlands, with their terraced hillsides and tree plantations. The Book of Kings describes the great riches of food and ointments brought to the table of King Solomon every day. Scholars believe that some terraces here date to the time of King Solomon and produced some of those riches. We saw Zora and Beit Shemesh, scenes of the Samson story and the fight between David and Goliath. We visited Tel Lachish, site of the ancient city of Lachish, which fell to the Assyrian army around 700BC. We drove on to the area of Maresha, the reputed birthplace of King Herod –in this area people built downwards instead of up. Because of my ankle I only visited the house at the end of the tour. It went several storeys down into the ground and contained a huge network of rooms, cisterns and corridors.

On another excursion we went to the Temple Mount. At the time of Jesus Herod had built a magnificent Temple. Nothing of the Temple remains now. But as the Temple was set on a hill the side of the hill first had to be levelled off and Herod constructed a huge platform for this purpose. Most of that platform survives today. The stones Herod used were carved out of limestone. As no cement was used the stones had to fit into their positions exactly. After 2000 years a razor blade still cannot fit between the stones. Unequalled in size anywhere in the ancient world many of them weigh up to 10 tons. One of the blocks in the western wall is 12 metres long, 3 metres high, 4 metres thick, and weighs 400 tons. The height of the western wall above the street was 32 metres near the point where it meets the southern wall. In the time of Jesus one of the main streets of Jerusalem, recently excavated, ran beside it. At the south wall of the mount some of the steps that led up to the Temple entrance in the time of Jesus still exist. They are carved out of the bedrock of Mount Moriah itself. About 50 ritual baths from the time of Jesus have been unearthed too. We can be sure that Jesus, his family, and the apostles all used both steps and ritual baths. The rabbis taught their disciples on the steps of the Temple –it is quite likely that this is the place where both they and Jesus taught.

On the street one day I passed Cardinal Etchegaray who has just arrived from the Vatican to try to mediate on the situation in Bethlehem. We later got some of the inside story. The Pope had written to the President of Israel asking him to try to resolve the situation in Bethlehem. The President replied that it had nothing to do with the Pope. The cardinal brought the reply that it had a lot to do with the Pope, being a Christian site. The cardinal also did some straight talking to Yasser Arafat, telling him to work something out with the Israelis. The cardinal believes that the Latin Patriarch is too partial to the Palestinians and doesn’t see the dangerous implications of that for the future: that the Muslims will walk on the Christians if they get autonomy. Some of the better informed say that both Israelis and Palestinians are using the Bethlehem situation for their own ends. Arafat, they maintain, has little interest in it being a Christian holy site in spite of his public façade on the issue. If the situation were reversed with a Christian group holed up in one of the Muslim holy sites, there would be demonstrations all over the Arab world. The gunmen in the Church of the Nativity, they say, are actually hoodlums who exact tribute from local businesses to ‘protect’ them. It was these who took refuge in the church and some others got caught up in the panic and ran in there with them. One morning we heard that the siege in Bethlehem had finally ended, except for 10 peace activists who still remained there! One priest was quoted in the paper later as saying that the latter had defiled the holy site by smoking and drinking. Again I can only agree that they wouldn’t do such a thing in a Muslim holy site.

One afternoon John and I decided to go to Bethany to see the church and grave of Lazarus. It turned out to be a bit of an adventure. First of all, halfway through the old city I realised I didn’t have my documentation with me but we decided to go ahead anyway. Then neither of us had checked out the Arabic name for Bethany but it seemed reasonable that Bethany should be Bethuniya / Beit Hanina. In fact, it was in the wrong direction altogether and we almost wound up in Ramallah. We noticed a roadblock just down the road from us. But what we were really looking for was Izara. Anyway we made it there and were welcomed by an elderly Franciscan. The church is peaceful. We called to see the tomb of Lazarus. On the return journey the minibus left the main road just ahead of a checkpoint and went down a steep embankment, coming in to Jerusalem via the Kidron Valley and the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives, showing the futility of trying to prevent suicide bombers from getting in. (It was only much later I realized how lucky I was that the minibus driver had taken this evasive action; I would have been in serious trouble at the checkpoint without my documentation).

Reminders of the war are never too far away. On the way to lectures throughout our time here we regularly meet groups of armed young soldiers on Jewish Quarter Road or heading towards Zion Gate. In our last few weeks we often met an armed group of teenage girls, no more than Leaving Cert. age. Do the Israelis have any childhood or youth? On Pentecost Sunday (May 19th) we went to the Dormition Abbey for Mass. It is quite near us. It was again a privilege to be here on this day, beside the ‘Upper Room’. That day the main celebrant was the Patriarch, assisted by his auxiliary. A good number of priests attended. The Mass included a Confirmation.  

We had two memorable events in our last week, quite different from each other. On the Sunday Fr. Athanasius invited two of us to St. Saviour’s for lunch. It was an interesting experience. The refectory is huge. The tables are along the walls, on all four sides. Everybody sits with his back to the wall, facing out into the centre. There is seating for up to 100 friars. Today we had about 70 at lunch. The Guardian addressed the group in Italian, during which John and I were welcomed. The food was better than we are accustomed to in Israel.  

The other memorable event was a visit to Ramallah. John, Vincent Dempsey and I were collected by Isolde Moylan, the Irish Consul, and her driver, Samar, on Wednesday morning in a silver Mercedes which carried the Irish flag on the bonnet. We discovered at some stage that it was an armoured car. We followed the back roads. Isolde mentioned an Israeli peace group told her that over 40% of the West Bank was now occupied by Israel. When we came to the outskirts of Ramallah we met two checkpoints in quick succession. There was more difficulty at the second one. First of all the soldiers said the driver, a Palestinian, couldn’t go with us. Then they said that they had been told to close the road 15 minutes before that and, even if we went in, we wouldn’t be able to get back out today. Isolde told them she would ring the Minister for Defence. With that we were let through. During the time we were waiting two U.S. cars were let through. But many others were also held up: German and Finnish Consulate groups and a U.N. party (who get a particularly rough time). Off the road and near the second checkpoint we saw some tanks. Isolde told us that they are kept there, near Ramallah, in the event of having to go in urgently. Given the whole security situation today Isolde and her driver felt that the Israelis were getting ready for an incursion. That evening, in fact, the army helicopters were back in the sky over Jerusalem.

We dropped Isolde at her office in Ramallah and Samar drove us into the city. We first called to Yasser Arafat’s compound. Samar spoke to the guards on duty and they admitted us. I was surprised at how big and open it was. Samar told us that repairs were under way but there was plenty of evidence of the conflict that had been waged: windows blown out and sandbagged, damaged parts to the building, several burnt out cars, etc. We were told that President Arafat was in the building and, I’m sure if we had asked, we would have been allowed to go inside even if not meet him. We were allowed take photographs and all the guards were very friendly –I’m sure the Irish flag was a help! After that Samar drove us around the city. It was quite large and, in spite of the troubles, there was a lot of activity. Samar particularly wanted to show us the damage that had been done. We saw what had been the police headquarters, now only a site. Two Israeli soldiers had been held here a few years ago when they strayed into Palestinian territory. A Palestinian mob broke in to the prison and killed them with their bare hands, so the Israelis later bombed it. We returned to the Irish Consulate. We had little difficulty at the checkpoints coming home and got out safely. Our fears that our visas (which had expired) would present difficulties did not materialise –the soldiers were mainly interested in the passports themselves.

Our last week was, naturally, our farewell week. First of all there was the ‘closing down’ of the course. We had our farewell celebration (Mass and party) at St. Peter’s (where we stayed) on Tuesday. We had a party in Ecce Homo (where we did the course) on Wednesday night. As usual the Irish members were the last to finish, some time after 1.00a.m. We had our ‘conferring’ (less grandly, the presentation of certificates) and closing Mass at Ecce Homo on Thursday, followed by lunch. It was pleasant, but naturally it was an occasion for saying ‘good bye’ to most people.

Then there was the leave taking of the Holy Sites. I adopted a kind of ‘work to rule’ to cover what I still wanted to do. On my last Saturday I visited the Gethsemane area, taking in, in turn, The Tomb of the Virgin (Greek Orthodox), the Cave of Gethsemane (Franciscan), and the Church of All Nations (Franciscan). The first is reputed to be the burial place of Mary, and from where she was assumed into heaven; the second is where Jesus told the larger group of apostles to wait for him on Holy Thursday night and where Judas came to betray him; the last is the site of the Agony. I was happy to be able to take my time on this occasion. The evening before leaving Jerusalem I went to the Holy Sepulchre for a last visit to Calvary and the Tomb, and to meet Fergus Clarke, my classmate from Maynooth.  

We bade farewell to Jerusalem and checked in to a hotel in Tel Aviv about 200 yards from the promenade and beach, but horror of horrors: they told us they didn’t have the World Cup channel. And that was our (at least John O Callaghan’s) whole reason for coming to Tel Aviv in the first place. We finally located a place on the promenade called the Buzz Stop where we were able to watch the matches. After the first match we decided to take the 30 minute walk to Jaffa, south along the promenade. The old centre of Joppa (Jaffa) on the hill is quite beautiful. We found the Church of St. Peter and the (reputed) house of Simon the Tanner, associated with the story of Peter’s vision and the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10. We took a stroll around the old port, associated with many events in history and in the Bible. The trawlers there were similar to the smaller ones in Dingle of 30 years ago. The port also has a lively market with clothes, knickknacks and a large variety of fresh fish. I went to the beach in the late afternoon for a swim and a bit of exercise. Around 6.00p.m., as I walked south on the edge of the breaking waves, I noticed that the area around me in the strand was empty of people. Then I noticed a soldier ahead of me keeping back the crowd. When I looked behind me I saw another soldier keeping the crowd back at the other side. I realised there must be a bomb alert. There had been much shouting over the p.a. system but, being in Hebrew, I hadn’t known what it was about. I turned round, foolishly probably, and went back through the cleared area to where my clothes were. About 10 minutes later there was an explosion –I can only presume it was a controlled explosion.

It was a very warm day again as we headed for the airport on Monday, aware of the Aer Lingus strike at home. Luckily we decided to go early. We joined the security queue before 1.30p.m. to be told within minutes that there was a strike among the baggage handlers –not another one! But it was sorted out also within minutes. The security check took over an hour, but they were courteous at all times. We left Tel Aviv on time at 5.00p.m. It was an extremely smooth flight and we landed at Heathrow at 10.30p.m (8.30 Jerusalem time) but, because of the Aer Lingus strike, it was Thursday before I got home.

I arrived home in Dromcollogher on Thursday, 6th June 2002 at 5.00p.m. So ended the adventure of a lifetime!

(Relating to email 1) My outward trip to the Holy Land involved taking a flight from Shannon to Tel Aviv, via Heathrow where I had to change planes. The flight from Shannon left promptly at 5.30p.m. on Sunday, 10th February 2002. It was a very squally day but we had no problems on the flight, arriving at Heathrow within the hour. Not knowing at the time that I could have checked through my luggage all the way from Shannon to Tel Aviv, the luggage became my biggest problem at Heathrow. Having to bring outfits for two seasons I had two rather heavy cases. That was fine until I had to leave the trolley at Terminal 1 and take the bags down an escalator. I put one ahead of me and the other behind me. This seemed only sensible –until I got to the bottom of the escalator. Then the first case refused to clear the little step at the end. Following on myself, without much choice, I got caught by the first case. Then the second one continued from behind, hit me and knocked me back over it. Then as the escalator continued to move I just couldn’t get to my feet. Luckily two young Irish men coming behind me then got involved in the act and eventually helped me to my feet, a little bruised and shaken. It was only on leaving the escalator I realised there was a pile-up beginning to develop to my rear. I distinctly remember the look of horror on the faces of a few elderly women following me on the escalator, and I was somewhat amused when I began to reflect on what might have happened –it could have simulated a scene from a ‘Carry On’ film as we all collapsed in a heap!

(Relating to email 4) After our visit to the Israel museum three of us (John, Peter and I) decided to go for something to eat, but this is Shabbat and most places are closed. Peter had an idea that there was a place open in Ben Sira Street, which is off Jaffa Road in Jewish West Jerusalem. We made a deal with a taxi driver to take us there for 35 shekels. Once in the taxi one of those annoying features of the Palestinians manifested itself. He asked if we would prefer to go to Bethlehem (a Palestinian area), and then the Mount of Olives. He insisted that there would be no restaurant open in Ben Sira Street, which is something I was wondering about myself. The hesitation was his trump card and he eventually persuaded even Peter that he should take us to the American Colony (this is a district). When there he wanted 55 shekels and after some argumentation we settled on 50. He dropped us at the door of a particular restaurant of his choosing. It was Palestinian but very clean and pleasant. We all had lamb chops, but there were many embellishments at no extra cost: pita bread at the beginning, fruit at the end and some kind of round fried pastry which I found very tasty, but I’m sure it was pure cholesterol. Our next problem was to find out where exactly we were and nobody seemed to be able to point this out on the map. We were somehow given directions to turn left at the door, and after that we came to a major dual-carriageway. Here Peter wanted to turn right but I decided the sun was in the west (!) and so we should turn in exactly the opposite direction. Along this route we met a young Jewish couple out for a stroll and John asked them for directions but they didn’t understand. However, the old city came into sight shortly after this. We entered by Damascus Gate. At the end of supper back in Gallicantu we heard that a bomb had gone off in Jerusalem a short while before. It was a suicide bomber. Several have been killed and many more injured. It was not far from the area we walked through today –around where John asked the Jewish couple for directions. We heard the sirens of ambulances and police cars quite clearly from then on. The timing of the bomb was meant to coincide with the celebrations for the end of Shabbat.

(Relating to email 4 but also to much later in the programme) On Tuesday, 26th February, I arranged to meet Fergus Clarke at the Holy Sepulchre after lectures. We dropped by St. Saviour’s (where he is actually living) for him to change out of his robes. He has to be back there at 3.00p.m. Fergus and I then went back up to West Jerusalem, to Jaffa Road, where we had lunch together. For a long time we were the only ones in the restaurant. Afterwards Fergus took me to Ben Yehuda Street to show me a few more good restaurants. As we walked along he also pointed out two spots we passed where there were plaques and wreaths because of two almost simultaneous suicide bombings on 1st December last. This links in with another occasion, on Sunday 14th April, John and I went up to the Jewish Quarter for a pizza –the Sunday supper in Gallicantu is not up to much. This young lad started talking to me. He told me he is 18, from Gibraltar, and has been attending one of the Jewish chavrutah (Torah schools) for the last eight months. He explained that many young Jews from around the world come here for the year before starting university. I understood him to say that he was ‘looking at religion as a career’ but he thinks now that it isn’t for him. He says that many of the same young Jews leave after just a few months. He also told me that he was involved in the double bombing in Ben Yehuda Street on 1st December last. At the first blast he got some bolts and shrapnel in his leg. He went back to try to find two of his friends (who, incidentally, had been killed) and ran into the second blast. He was thrown up in the air and for several yards, but he survived that one relatively unscathed.