St. Anthony

St. Anthony & relic in
our main church

It's been 4 days since I updated my blog! I'm ok ... just very tired easily, swollen feet and sleepless nights due to phlegm accumulation in the windpipe. I've barely slept 3 hours a night now. And we hit a new high of the heatwave. Last Saturday recorded 40 degrees. It was stifling hot. You could feel the ground burning through the soles of your shoes. The today it's all cloudy and cold ... and drizzling! Drizzling in summer? This is so weird. Everyone is just talking about the rain. It's definitely a good respite from the heat but it's totally out of character for summer to rain! Now the rains have stopped and the heat is back. Forecast for another day of 40 degrees.

On Saturday night, when it was 40 degrees, it was too hot to sleep so I went out to the terrace where a cool breeze was blowing. Then I witnessed an altercation below my house. 4 jewish youths attacking an arab youth. They sprayed pepper spray at him and he managed to run off to his home. Police then came ... to defend the attackers and tried to enter the arab's house ... not sure to interrogate him or arrest him. All I know is that the injustice here is unimaginable in any other country.

Violence continues sporadically throughout the country. We're not sure if it'll get worse. We certainly don't want our first corona-free summer to be spoilt. And newspaper reports are saying ... we're not free from corona yet. There's a 30% rise of infected cases, with many more unreported. I'm still keeping my mask.

Today is the feast of St. Anthony. It's a solemnity here in the Holy Land because St. Anthony is the patron saint. He had wanted to come as a missionary and die here but was not allowed. Anyway he got to the the patron saint so that's good. The Indian communities here have a great devotion to him and they all had novenas prior to the solemnity. Let's pray that St. Anthony will protect the Christians here from persecution and keep us safe.