Maundy Thursday

Archbishop washes the feet of others

It's Maundy Thursday. Early in the morning int he Holy Sepulchre, the clergy gather with the bishops in front of the Empty Tomb to celebrate the blessing of the Chrism Oils. The priests will renew their promises to the Archbishop and express their common priesthood shared with the bishop. Then unlike all other churches around the world, here in the Holy Sepulchre, the Lord's Supper is also celebrated in the same liturgy. The Archbishop washed the feet of 12 priests. The rest of the world celebrates this in the evening.

I stayed at home instead of going to the liturgy. There are only a limited amount of places for the clergy so we usually let those visiting priests and students to participate. We celebrated the Lord's Supper at 5.30pm as many other chapels do. That's because at 7pm we have to go to the Garden of Gethsemani to spend time in adoration until midnight.

The Custos washes the feet of boys

At 3pm the Custos and the friars gathered in the Last Supper Room to perform the Washing of Feet and pay Vespers.

But one strange event disrupted all our plans ... a storm brought out. Temperatures dropped drastically to 9 degrees and a very strong shower fell on Jerusalem. The wind was very gusty. Luckily I did not go to Gethsemani. I would have been sick by the drench and cold. The adoration is covered by live telecast so you can watch it on live broadcast.

Tomorrow we will be fasting the whole day. Rain is again predicted in the morning so the Way of the Cross will be a wet affair. Couple this with the start of the Jewish Passover and you can imagine what our street will look like. I dread it. My dream of escaping to Jaffa has been burned. I had to stay back home to work. Utter dread.

In a bizarre twist, Israeli police arrested a 3 yr old toddler for throwing stones. Read all about it.   https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-border-police-briefly-detain-three-year-old-palestinian-in-hebron-1.5957776

Then yesterday an extreme jewish group performed the slaughter of the Passover lamb along the staircase that once led to the Temple Mount. This is forbidden by jewish Law because there is no altar nor Temple for this sacrifice. The police are disturbed but they will not arrest anyone. The group even posted leaflets in arabic warning muslims not to come near this group or it's "sacrifice".  https://www.janglo.net/index.php?option=com_adsmanager&page=display&catid=99&tid=441492

On a really good note, the Bar Ilan university has created an app to save allergy sufferers like me. It locates similar sufferers around you so when you get an attack but do not have an EpiPen available, the person closest will be alerted to share his//her EpiPen to save your life. I like this.   https://www.janglo.net/index.php?option=com_adsmanager&page=display&catid=99&tid=441540