Feastday and tensions

Main roads blocked off

Yesterday was Pentecost Day ... and also the jewish feast of Shavuot (Pentecost in hebrew). It started out bad for us because 15 jewish men came to our church, kicked and spat at a cross and then beat up our doorman. Jewish tolerance? Not one shred ... it was outright anti-christian. This hatred and vicious spitting is not a rare or often occurrence. It's every day ... every day once in the morning and once in the evening 4 jewish girls in their teens will walk pass out door and spit at us. And they know the police is on their side so they do it with smug.

8 shekels for these

So as Shavuot, the police blocked all the main roads from Damascus Gate so the crowds of jews could walk down to the Wailing Wall. I went out early at 5am to buy fresh bread for my community as it was Pentecost. The crowds were just dispersing and I met a couple of my israeli security friends on duty. We chatted for a while. The I went out to Musrara's 24 hr bakery to get 8 loaves. The shopkeepers by now know me so they sold it to me very cheaply. 8 shekels for 8 loaves!!! That's amazing ... and they were huge loaves. Each loaves can be shared by 2 or 3 people.

Anyway for most of the morning I cleaned up the courtyard behind the sacristy which leads to the library. The scaffolding of the elevator installation was removed last week and I wanted to plant  some flowers and bushes to make it look less severe and hot. As I have use of only one hand, I got the help of the 2 sons of our doorman. They were a great help. Almost everything was done.

Archbishop in procession

Then at 5.30pm the Archbishop called me to prepare his vestments because he was coming to confer confirmation on 2 italian volunteers. I prepared everything as he wanted ... then was told to stay as doorman because it was already late in the evening. To avoid jews or muslims entering and causing damage like this morning, I had to open and close the main doors each time someone entered or left for the Mass. And I had to watch the door till the last person left ... which was 9.30pm. By then I was utterly exhausted and went to sleep ... after all it's Monday morning and I have class at 4am solar time.