Birthday of the BVM

St. Anne & Mary
in the Church

It's the birthday of the BV Mary ... and the centre of the celebration is just down my road at St. Anne's Church ... the traditional spot where the birth has been venerated for over a millennia. Today over the grotto stands a Crusader church and a distance away there is the gospel Bethesda Pool. There was solemn Mass there this morning and at 3pm I made a visit there. Said a prayer for you all. Crowds of pilgrims kept pouring into the Church all afternoon and our street was packed with people. I'm glad the  Municipality has decided to limit traffic of cars and vans to only residents of our street so the congestion between vehicles and tourists are cut down.

Basilica of the birth
of Mary

Morning Mass though was in the Empty Tomb with an overcrowded group of 50 people. It was a crazy sardine-packed Mass inside the small Tomb but I survived it. Groups are returning to visit the Holy Land and will increase in 3 weeks when the Feast of Sukkoth is celebrated. Protestants will fly in by the thousands for the Jerusalem Parade because they believe their presence is a fulfilment of the Prophet Zechariah's oracle that non-jews will come to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkoth.

Last evening I felt the cold ... like I needed a thick hoodie to keep warm. I was walking home from work at 10pm and usually a T-shirt would have been enough ... but last night it was cold. And this morning the sky was overcast with rainclouds ... and by 12pm it started drizzling. Unbelievable.

Mangoseens form Sri Lanka

I was up at the Ratisbon Chapel this morning to rehearse a matrimony that I have to preside next Saturday. On the way home it drizzled quite heavily. Anyway the matrimony will be in Eritrean so I have to know something about the Ethiopic Rite and language. I had received the authorisation from the Patriarchal Vicar to preside as their regular Ethiopic chaplain was on leave. I'll need to study up real fast. This morning the chaplain Fr. Medhin introduced me to the congregation and the couple. The liturgical assistant who will help me was my former student from Ethiopia, Girmay ... I hadn't seen him in 2 years. He looks so much healthier and happier. And on my way home I met another student who just returned from Sri Lanka last night. He remembered what I like and brought me 6 mangosteens!!! Brilliant!!!