Nablus visit

Crowds at Bethlehem plaza

It's Boxing Day, or St. Stephen's Feast but being the 1st Sunday after Christmas, it's also Holy Family Day. I decided to travel to Nablus to visit the MC sisters and send them some Christmas aid. The traffic to the Samaritan city 90kms away was awful. It took us almost 2 hours to get there. And coming home was also wrecked with traffic jams. Another 2 hours to return home.

For St. Stephen's feast, the friars go down to the site where Stephen was stoned. Vespers is sung and the place is incensed and the people venerate the huge stone before the Greek Orthodox close the sanctuary again. The place was once franciscan property but the greeks took it from us. The Ottoman rulers established the status quo so the property remains with the greeks today.

MC chapel in Nablus

In the meantime, I celebrated Mass for the  patients and the sisters. It was very cold ... almost freezing. but seeing the handicapped and elderly residents again was great, and making them laugh during Christmas was special. They have no visitors at all. After Mass the sisters offered a lovely lunch: rice with spicy brinjals and curry veggies. They also baked a lovely orange cake. I ate some and would have loved to eat more but the journey is too far and I'm afraid I might need a toilet along the way ... which in the desert is impossible to find.

Well the whole Nablus adventure took from 8.15 am till 4pm when I arrived home. Now I'm exhausted. Going to bed early.