Yesterday

All Saints' Day. We celebrated the Mass with pomp - meaning singing the Mass of the Angels. Several of the fathers here left early for Jordan to attend the funeral and burial of Fr Piccirillo. But after being held up at the Israeli border (apparently the computer at the Immigration counters was not working!), most of the friars decided to return home as it was already too late for the funeral Mass on Mt. Nebo in Jordan (the mountain where Moses died). Only Fr Giovanni Loche and Prof. Pirone from our community decided to stick on and later in the day they were allwoed to cross the border. They had waited from 8am and they arrived at Nebo only at about 2.30pm!!! Just in time for the burial. At 4.30pm both immediately left for the border to return to Israel and got back home only at 10.30pm.

The previous evening at 5pm, Fr Cesare Mariano defended his doctoral thesis at our Aula Magna (Hall) - he was fiery and had some quick answers to the various comments and obsevations made by the commission of 4 professors. After that at 8pm he invited the whole community, his family and relatives and friends to a sumptious dinner at Al-Zahara restaurent - once one of the top restaurents in East Jerusalem. We had the usual Arabic salads, and then came the main dish - an entire lamb cooked in saffron rice. It was very very well done, and everyone enjoyed it very much. It was good to see Cesare again. Now he'll go back to his diocese in Italy and become a great professor! Good luck, Cesare!

My left knee was hurting very badly since I walked back from Terra Santa College for the Cardinal's talk. I was hobbling about the whole day and yesterday (All Saints) I decided not to go about but rested in bed instead (well for most of the day, since in the morning I did some gardening - pruned the geraniums for winter). I even managed to sleep for half and hour in the afternoon - pretty rare for me!