A nice day

Today is Study Day. That means we invite some experts to come and talk about a special topic and then we have workshops discussing certain quesitons. This year is big - we teamed up with the Salesian Theological School and got some heavy weights to share on the topic of the Bible in the Church's life and mission - the topic that the world's bishops will be discussing with the pope this October. I decided to go early as I walk slowly. Left at 7.30am for St Saviour's Monastery.

But what chaos! I forgot (we forgot) it is the Orthodox Holy Saturday and the Jewish Passover. All the streets in the Old City were closed from the 7th station of the cross onwards. I quickly called our dean on my mobile to warn all the speakers, bishops etc... to avoid entering the Old City except directly through New Gate that leads to St Saviour's. Good thing I did that otherwise the conferences would have been delayed for a long time.

Well as for me I wasn't going to walk all the way back to Damascus Gate and make a big detour, so wrangled my way through hundreds of Orthodox pilgrims. Luckily my modern Greek came in handy and I could argue and shout my way through to the barriers where the police were. The police were willing to let me through but were afraid if they opened a gap in the barriers, the Orthodox will rush through, so I had to climb. There were 4 barriers that I had to climb and jump - one at the 7th Station, another at the 8th Station, next at the Greek Patriarchate and finally one at our Casa Nova. Well I fell at the 2nd barrier because my cord was tangled in the metal barriers, and the greeks kept pushing me forward. Fell with my cord still caught on the barriers - thank goodness it wasn't around my neck as I would have hung myself dead. ANyway landed with a swollen left ankle again - yes the same one.

Managed to reach St Saviour's barely in one piece. The conference started late - undeerstandbly as I heard they even closed off New Gate. We had to send two friars to the soldiers at the gate to identify our participants so they can enter the Old City! But the conference did start and it was pretty good. It dealt with topics that I genuinely was interested, eg the documents of the church on the Bible and the impact of Vatican II (that's the 2nd Vatican Council 1963-1965). Bishop Bettazzi was excellent in his humour - I laughed alot!

When it was time for lunch I told the dean I wasn't going to walk all the way back to Flagellation Monastery, through the crowds, with my swollen ankle. So he suggested I stay at St Saviour's to eat instead - which was nice since I haven't eaten there for like 10 years. The refectory is huge - about 100 friars and guests were there for lunch today. I ate little as I was chatting with the semianrians sitting around me.

After lunch I went to William's room where he showed me photos of Lebanon (very nice place) and his family. It was very nice. At 2.30pm we went back downstairs to continue the conference. I didn't stay for the workshop at 5pm but went home with other guys from the Flagellation. Took the long narrow side roads to get home to avoid the barriers. I thought it was really a nice day and I learnt alot. When we reached our courtyard of the Flagellation I had a nice surprise: Edna Almoog a Jewish guide whom I know well was leading an Italian group. We chatted up and it happened that the Italians in the group came from the same places as Frs Matteo and Massimo (the 2 italian friars who walked home with me) so everyone started chatting. It was a happy ending of a very nice day.