Terrorist attempt

Yesterday a terrible terrorist attempt was made in front on our monastery. At about 5pm a muslim terrorist came passed our monastery on his way to the 3rd Station crossroads where Jews were going to the Wailing Wall to pray. As he came pass our monastery, Fr Lino, our septuagenarian professor emeritus was coming home. He got pushed to the ground and his hand was cut by the knife the guy was carrying. The guy then went on to Ecce Homo and struck 2 Indian pilgrims before rushing on to the 3rd Station where soldiers over-powered him. It was lucky that Fr Lino was not seriously hurt. But we were all shocked by this event.

The enormous bells (Orthodox) of the Holy Sepulchre are all ringing right now as I write - signaling the Resurrection (It's Easter Vigil for the Orthodox today). The Sacred Fire that "appears" in the Empty Tomb is carried out by the Orthodox Patriarchs (Greek, Armenian, Coptic and Syriac) to the faithful who literally fight for it. But despite this Easter rejoicing, the fact is that we're still living in hatred and fear; in persecution and terrorism. We believe the death and resurrection of Christ has overcomed all this evil, but it takes time for it to unfold.

Yesterday the Holy Sepulchre bells belonging to the Greek Orthodox were tolling the death knell (Good Friday) ... even into the night. Very foreboding because the neighbours' damn cat killed our 2nd canary last night - this time it's little jughead. The cat grabbed its leg through the net and ate it. Poor little jughead died bleeding. And it's the 2nd time the cat(s) has done this. The night before, the cats jumped on one of the breeding cages and threw it down on the floor, smashing the feeding troughs and the nest with 2 eggs in it. All the other birds were scared and refused to eat the whole day. I had to keep them inside the school last night; but that's when the cat(s) got little jughead, who was in the large cage in the courtyard. Last week the cat(s) got one of our yellow males. Same thing - had a leg missing. Everyone here has agreed something drastic has to be done with the cat(s) - there're actually 3 of them.