Salahaddin

Cleaned ut my room yesterday morning. Celebrated Mass at 6.30am in the Flagellation Chapel with the remaining 5 fathers. All the rest are back home on holidays. It was a very quiet morning. I wanted to go to the Holy Sepulchre but the thought of walking up the Way of the Cross in this heat was a big dissuasion.

Things have calmed down in my area after the closure of the City Gate due to the attack. But groups are still sparse and avoiding this area.

Decided to watch "Kingdom of Heaven" - beautiful film about the crusaders, Salahaddin and the lost of Jerusalem. It stars Orlando Bloom. It is set in the time of Crusader King baldwin the 4th, a valient but leper king. I needed to see because I felt it brought back to mind the historical conditions that are now influencing our lives in modern Jerusalem. While Salahaddin and his muslim army fought to control Jerusalem from the crusaders, there was still a code of chivalry, or honour and respect, for the enemy. nemies negotiated before they fought a war, usually as the last resort. As Balian (Orlando Bloom) says in the film "No one has a claim to the Holy Places; everyone has a claim to the Holy Places; we are not fighting to protect these stones, we are fighting to protect the people living in it". And this brought to mind what I always say to my pilgrims "It is not these stones that make the land holy; it is the people who make the land holy". And so this film speaks to me - because I'm living exactly over the very spot where all these things took place. I walk out and there are mosques and muslims everywhere, many know me and some are my friends; yet the shadow of 1000 years cover us all and we keep our distance, and throw suspicious glances behind our backs. The film enters the last part when Salahaddin negotiates with Balian as the Crusaders are trapped in the walled city of Jerusalem. Salahaddin offers safe conduct for all Christian men, women and child to leave Jerusalem for Cyprus (a historical fact) and balian is surprised. He tells Salahaddin "When the Crusaders took over Jerusalem (100 years before), they killed every muslim found in it. Why are you doing this?" Salahaddin answers "I am not those men. I am Salahaddin". Historically we know that Salahaddin (like Omar before him) was a great man who respected others. And today, here in the very streets where he once walked ...... so much hatred, anger and intolerance.