Reason why

All the violence and closure of the Old City is due to the rebuilding and rededication of the Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter. It's not simply just another synagogue - the symbolism is packed with undercurrents that result in these 4 days of unrest. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=170971 

More thanks

Sincere thanks to Antonia Wong, Michael Tung, Augustine-Patrick and many others who have generously helped in one way or another. Every contribution helps make lives a little more livable here. The water-purification tablets are especially important. But of course all your prayers are most important for us to sustain our work with the under-privileged.

We too are praying for you.

Thanks

Thanks to Michael Tung for his generous help.

Protests

Just as Mass was ending this morning, we could hear schoolboys outside our monastery chanting slogans and kicking down their school door. Apparently the soldiers closed their school which lies on the northern wall of the Dome of the Rock esplanade. The schoolboys charged several times trying to breakdown the door and stopped only when their teachers and principal arrived to speak to the soldiers inside. After another half hour of protests, they relented and opened the school. Calm was restored. But the rest of the City remains closed.

Trouble

There's trouble in the Ras el Amud area about 2 km south of where I live. I can hear alot of shouting and stunt guns being fired.

Sunday

Totally knocked out this afternoon. Like after lunch I was so overcome with tiredness, a dull headache, and was really getting incoherent. Then fell into a strange sleep that lasted four and a half hours. Really weird. It's like the time when I got my mobile stolen in the mall ... like being drugged. There was this woman who came up and talked and talked and asked to see my mobile and I became so out of sync till another Father came up to me and asked why I gave my mobile to the lady who had already walked away with it.

And talk about stolen ... I'm getting stock of my things being stolen ... besides the two mobiles on two different occassions, there's the everyday stolen mail, two pants, several socks, two shirts, one winter jersey   and several woollen clothes. It's becoming a joke here that whatever is sent to the laundry's never returns. And there's the bigger joke last week when Fr Marcello actually bought two new towels. I laughed at him because I said it's gonna get stolen when it's sent to the laundry, and he sorta regretted having bought them. So each time I see him I ask if he still has the towels and he says he's not using them .... yet!!!!

Meantime the soldiers are still flooding the Old City and the City gates are all closed. Dreadful tension. Shopkeepers speak to me in whispers. Observation balloons hover a mile up in the sky with cameras watching everyone's move in the Old City. I don't know if I can go out to work tomorrow. But sleeping would be a nice alternative.... give or take the endless pain of the spondylosis.

Total closure

It's confirmed that the closure of the Old City will extend to Tuesday. It's because the Jews have reconstructed the ruins of the Hurva synagogue and will inaugurate it tomorrow; but fear the arabs will riot against it. The synagogue abuts a mosque. And it purposely has a large dome to compete with the Golden Dome of the Rock mosque and our Christian Holy Sepulchre Basilica.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1156238.html 

I've just got back from Vigils at the Holy Sepulchre. It's 2am. We sang well and the crowd was just right, not too many but enough to fill our chapels. It ended with the procession around the Empty Tomb - very solemn and impressive. After that I celebrated Mass in the Crusader Chapel while everyone else joined the Custos for Mass up on Mt Calvary. But I had to babysit Sr. Vicenta .... as she wanted to come along for Vigils. I had to accompany her to the Basilica at 11pm and she came for Mass and we returned home together - lots of soldiers at every corner despite the early hours of the morning. It does give a sense of security when you're walking alone in the dimly lit alleys of the Old City, not knowing who's hiding behind one of the doors or corners.

I'll do some reading now and then try to sleep. The spondylosis is killing me.