Lenten Vigil

Via Dolorosa at
2.30am in rain

What an incredible weekend weather. Violent thunderstorms after midnight, hailstones during the afternoon, gale-force freezing winds all day and night. People are ravaged by a contagious flu and no one wants to go out if they could possibly do. The weather was so bad, the annual Sounds of the Old City music festival had its opening cancelled last night. Tonight is the opening instead ... I hope to go see it, But having been so busy in the past 60 hours ... having slept only 6 hours in all ... I am today brain-dead. In fact I fell asleep while writing a report.

Sunday midnight I went to the Lenten Vigil. It was raining very heavily. From 12.30am to 2pm we sang Matins with canticles and read passages form the Church Fathers. Then there was the procession around the Empty Tomb in candlelight. It was very crowded despite the late hour and bad weather. There was Mass after the Vigil but I went home instead. Drenched when I arrived home at 2.30am. I had a hot cup of coffee and a piece of bread, then I had to prepare the chapel because a group was coming at 5am for Way of the Cross. They were wet and made the pews and church all wet. When they left I spent one hour mopping and wiping the entire chapel because our Sunday Mass was at 7am and the chapel needed to be orderly. After Mass, I had to rsh off to the Armenian Catholic church because the 3 PDDM sisters were leaving the premises, having finished their contract with the Armenian Catholic Church.

Robotic mini-tank

The weather is not the only thing going extreme. The political environment is quite heated up as elections will take place next week. And the war with Gaza, though quiet now, has spilled into the City. Police have stepped up their presence and the other day I actually saw - the first time in my life - a mini robotic tank. Soldiers were guiding it into its carrier. It was really frightening to see it. It had 4 gun guns attached ... meaning one mini-tank does the job of 4 soldiers. Truck-drivers next to it stopped their machines and scattered as far as possible.