New week

Group making Way of Cross
at 4.30am

Yesterday was a replay of Saturday ... I had to prepare and open the chapel at 4.30am for a visiting group making the Way of the Cross. That makes sleeping 3 hours a day for the past 2 days. It's exhausting. Today I slept for 2 hours n the afternoon to catch up because I was practically braindead. Anyway lots of groups are coming early to make the Way of the Cross ... that avoids the crush of crowds, the castle of vendors, the harassment of jews and muslims. This morning there were 3 groups that started the Way of the Cross at 4.30am. It was unbelievable but people prefer the serenity of praying than sleeping in.

10 deacons ordained today

At 9am I had the Armenian Mass but my armenian servers were all away attending an ordination Mass. Luckily I managed to contact 3 Africa Missionary seminarians to help me. Managed to pull through the liturgy and gave a nice sermon which the congregation appreciated. Must improve my armenian so I can preach in that language. It is a very difficult language ... morphologically and grammatically. But at least I'm able to read most of it. That's a long way.

And yes there was this diaconal ordination Mass at our parish church. 10 franciscan seminarians ordained deacons. We already have 15 right now ... so today we have 25 deacons in our Holy Land Custody. That is a lot! We have a boom in vocations this year ... with some 80 seminarians. There's not enough rooms in the seminary so it's divided into 2 campuses in Jerusalem and Ein Kerem, and a smaller community at the Last Supper Room. A few others are sent to various sanctuaries for a year of apostolate experience or learning foreign languages.