Holy Innocents

4am and heavy rain

It really rained yesterday ... all day and all night. In your country, you'd call it a storm. We've not had one that lasted so long .... practically 24 hrs. There were rumbles of thunder and the wind was very strong. And I was working outdoors for 18 hrs. Started at 4am going to the Holy Sepulchre to say Mass for a group of sisters. And it was raining heavily. After that we toured the basilica till 7.30am. Then from 9am to 1.30pm I brought them to see the Jewish Quarter and the archeological exhibits. Then from 2.30pm to 5pm I brought them to the Gethsemane and the shrines in the Kidron Valley. All the time it was raining very hard. We were all wet and I was afraid I'd catch pneumonia. I was coughing very badly.

Quicho the cat

Then at 5.30 I had to rush 1km to East Jerusalem and meet a group. I was extremely tired and breathless. I didn't think I'd make it. I was having blackout flashes. And my legs felt like jelly. When that finished .... and it was raining very hard all the time... I had to walk 2kms uphill to West Jerusalem to meet another group. By the time I got home it was 10pm and I really thought I'll die. It was a punishing schedule but I had to do it and I survived ... even in the storm. It was quite an achievement.

This morning started also at 4am when I had to go back to Jaffa ... in the storm. It's Holy Innocents Day. Visibility was very poor in the highway ... and it was very foggy ... so our car had to go very slowly. At 8am I had to bring our seminarians around Jaffa to visit some important sites. And it was a storm so heavy, umbrellas were overturned and everyone was utterly drenched. I took the taxi home at 12pm because I really couldn't stay in the cold anymore. I was feeling really sick. But it was a very fun morning ... with our philosophy seminarians on their christmas holidays. And our cat Quicho in our Jaffa monastery was very playful and kept us entertained when we had breakfast.

By the way there's a new strain of flu in Israel, already 11 people have died and 90+ in serious condition. Maybe it's time I got my flu shots.