Pączki

Buddy steals my pączki 

It'a Friday and the usual crowds of muslims entered the Old City to reach the mosque. Police to have been numerous as well. But I doubt there'll be any trouble here. We've seen the general mood by now ... no one here wants trouble. So when 2 policemen came to our gates this afternoon, there was great distress ... police and soldiers are not allowed in religious buildings because they carry weapons. The doorman called me down as the police wanted to see me. When I got down to the courtyard, the police opened their bags and brought me chinese medicine from a druze friend from the north of Israel. These 2 policemen were from the same village and are stationed here in the Old City so they offered to bring the medicine to me. Everyone was laughing with relief.

The 7 fruit of the Bikkurim feast

This morning I completed an 8 day retreat/conference for the junior MC sisters. We studied the jewish feasts which the jews are celebrating these few weeks and its significance for us. At the end of the programme, the sisters prepared the 7 species of choice fruit which the feast of bikkurim require to be offered at the Temple. They did a simple paraliturgy which was very nice. The fruit are figs, dates, olives, grapes, pomegranates, wheat and barley.

The sisters made pączki (ponscki - the jam filled doughnuts) because I like it. One of the sisters is polish so she knows how to make it. Or so she thought. They forgot to fill it with jam!!!!! Now I'm eating it with a jam jar nearby ... one scoop of jam with every bite of pączki.

After that I went to work till 1pm and then I had 4 precious hours to rest before I meet an ethiopic couple to prepare them for wedding tomorrow morning. It's a bit complicated as they celebrate the ethiopic rite liturgy and I do not know the rite nor the language. Ethiopic seminarians will be helping me through the liturgy. Well I hardly rested for the past 8 days so these 4 hours I really wanted to sleep. Tomorrow after the wedding I'll start another 8 days of conference with another group of MC sisters from the war regions. Then after that another 8 days of silent retreat with the large groups of 20 sisters. It's all back-to-back so I am and will be exhausted. The only break I have is this 4 hours today.