Bomb scare in Holy Sepulchre

Religious jew on
New Year day

At noon I received news that the Holy Sepulchre was evacuated because a suspicious package was found inside the basilica. Everyone is shocked that this should even happen ... in the holiest site of christianity. We have no news or followup. Let's see what happens in the next few hours.

The New Year holidays continue today. The Old City yesterday was flooded by migrant Chinese workers ... literally hundreds upon hundreds. They work in construction along the coastal cities and yesterday they probably organised a tour to Jerusalem. They had no guides and they floated from place to place in small groups, not knowing what they saw. Pity.

Religious jews flooded the Damascus Gate area to get to the Wailing Wall for prayers today as well. I noticed most of the men wore white. Secular jews came on tours to visit the Old City. With the chinese and other groups .... our streets were packed with people. Another pilgrim group that was numerous was the Ukrainians. 100 of them made the Way of the Cross at 5.30am yesterday in front of our door. I couldn't get out to celebrate Mass at the Ivrea convent. Nightmare ... luckily I was given the key to our backdoor a day before so I could get out.

New chalice and
paten from India

I met up with some of my ex-students who returned from their summer holidays .... mainly Indians and Sri Lankans. I had asked them to help me buy chalices and monstrances because the sisters of M. Teresa needed them for their convents in Gaza and Nablus. And happily several people in Singapore and Hong Kong offered to sponsor the sacred vessels. Thanks a million for your generosity. The chalices and monstrances are cheaper in India than from Europe ... as much as one third of the european price. Of course the gold plating isn't as heavy as the european ones ... but it's ok for us. We can't afford the european prices. Well one set of chalice and paten arrived last night with one of my students. I'm expecting 2 more chalices and one monstrance.

Locally there's a growing tension as the demolition of a bedouin village near Jericho goes underway in order to build houses for jewish settlers. There's fear that anger and violence might spread from the desert to the cities.  3 arab east jerusalemites were also arrested for suspected arson ... burning a large area of nature reserve along the Dead Sea.