1st night of Ramadan?

Giotto exhibition at the Custody Hall

It's Friday and thousands of muslims came into the Al Aqsa Mosque because it's the last Friday before Ramadan. We expect the canon to be fired this evening to announce the start of Ramadan ... but everything depends on the sighting of the new moon. If it's not visible, Ramadan then will be postponed to tomorrow night. The lights however have been decorating the muslim East Jerusalem for several nights now. Well despite the heavy military presence, nothing violent happened.

And ISIS had to celebrate Ramadan by killing over 23 Coptic Christians in Egypt while they were on their way to visit a desert monastery. It is despicable. How can one claim to make penance and repent in Ramadan by killing others. It contradicts the very nature of the feast.

The friars in the Holy Land are celebrating 800 years of presence this Pentecost. It's a long history marked with lots of tragedy and heroism ... in order to protect the holy places of christianity, many were slaughtered by muslims. For the celebrations that will last for 3 years, there is an exhibition of Giotto the medieval painter of St. Francis who decorated with frescoes the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi.