Visitation Feast

Jews going home from the Wailing
Wall this morning

It's Shavuot today ... the jewish feast of the barley harvest. Most of the celebrations are outdoors in the fields ... with flowers, fruit and dances. This morning our street was closed to traffic as hundreds of Jews were going to the Wailing Wall for prayers. The muslim crowd by then had gone to sleep after a whole night's feasting. Police presence is still heavy but there's calm and no sign of tensions.    http://www.ynetnews.com/articlesnc/0,7340,L-4969502,00.html

Summer must really be here because the first Muslim call to prayer is at 3.15am - this is daylight saving so in real solar time it's actually 2.15am. The 2nd call which should be at the first rays of the sun is 4am (or 3am solar time), That is very early. Thank goodness for the new law that forbids the muezzins to yell over certain decibels. All the PA systems of the mosques have been toned down ... and I noticed even the morning canon for Ramadan is not fired ... until this morning.

Preparing the Marian altar in our
courtyard this morning

Today for us is the Feast of the Visitation. All the friars ... well most ... are in Ein Kerem for the feast. That's where the Sanctuary of the Visitation is. Solemn Mass was celebrated there in the morning and then in the evening we have solemn Vespers. And being the last day of May, the parish here in Jerusalem holds the annual Marian procession around the Christian Quarter, with bands playing and flower-girls throwing petals along the streets. It'll end in our courtyard of the Marian altar (makeshift) and then everyone goes to evening Mass to finish the Month of Mary.

This morning I happened to bump into an old friend whom I've not seen for almost a year. He said he was getting married next week and hoped I'd come to his wedding. That was very nice. He's Greek Orthodox but his fiancee is an Episcopalian from the US, so the wedding will take place at St. George's Anglican cathedral. Makes sense? no ... nothing does in this country. But we do it anyway.