Birthday of the BVM

St. Anne & Mary
in the Church

It's the birthday of the BV Mary ... and the centre of the celebration is just down my road at St. Anne's Church ... the traditional spot where the birth has been venerated for over a millennia. Today over the grotto stands a Crusader church and a distance away there is the gospel Bethesda Pool. There was solemn Mass there this morning and at 3pm I made a visit there. Said a prayer for you all. Crowds of pilgrims kept pouring into the Church all afternoon and our street was packed with people. I'm glad the  Municipality has decided to limit traffic of cars and vans to only residents of our street so the congestion between vehicles and tourists are cut down.

Basilica of the birth
of Mary

Morning Mass though was in the Empty Tomb with an overcrowded group of 50 people. It was a crazy sardine-packed Mass inside the small Tomb but I survived it. Groups are returning to visit the Holy Land and will increase in 3 weeks when the Feast of Sukkoth is celebrated. Protestants will fly in by the thousands for the Jerusalem Parade because they believe their presence is a fulfilment of the Prophet Zechariah's oracle that non-jews will come to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkoth.

Last evening I felt the cold ... like I needed a thick hoodie to keep warm. I was walking home from work at 10pm and usually a T-shirt would have been enough ... but last night it was cold. And this morning the sky was overcast with rainclouds ... and by 12pm it started drizzling. Unbelievable.

Mangoseens form Sri Lanka

I was up at the Ratisbon Chapel this morning to rehearse a matrimony that I have to preside next Saturday. On the way home it drizzled quite heavily. Anyway the matrimony will be in Eritrean so I have to know something about the Ethiopic Rite and language. I had received the authorisation from the Patriarchal Vicar to preside as their regular Ethiopic chaplain was on leave. I'll need to study up real fast. This morning the chaplain Fr. Medhin introduced me to the congregation and the couple. The liturgical assistant who will help me was my former student from Ethiopia, Girmay ... I hadn't seen him in 2 years. He looks so much healthier and happier. And on my way home I met another student who just returned from Sri Lanka last night. He remembered what I like and brought me 6 mangosteens!!! Brilliant!!!

Not all quiet

Quiet Friday streets

It's Friday again and it's noticeably tense with lots of police stationed in and around the Old City especially in my Quarter. I noticed more arab youths were being stopped and searched this morning more than the rest of the week. I guess it's also because this Sunday evening begins Rosh haShana (jewish New Year). But being Friday, coming home from Mass at 7am is nice because the streets are empty ... everyone would have gone home to sleep after their early morning prayers at the mosques. I rather enjoy going out at that early morning ... the air is fresh and cool ... the grass is wet with dew and the olive trees smell of its perfume. The occasional jasmine is overpowering overpowering with its perfume. There's this house that I have to pass every morning to the Ivrea convent, it has a jasmine plant which is so sweet each time I walk under it I think of the cannonball trees and it's incredible flowers.

Galaxy Note blew up

Burst capillaries is my biggest health problem these 2 weeks. Opening a door, carrying a plate or a book ... and immediately a capillary bursts in one of my fingers. The pain is awful and the swelling is bad for a couple of days. I might have to wear finger guards (again ... I used to do that when the bursting was frequent) to keep the capillaries in place. That's one of the side-effects of too much cortezone use ... for my asthma. And the shoulder pain persists so I hardly sleep. It's dreadful having only to sleep 3 hours a day with a whole day's work lasting 16 hours. No lunch breaks. Dinner usually means 10.30pm when I get home. And my fingers swell with burst capillaries when I take food from the fridge. They just burst.  

My Galaxy Note 5 blew up yesterday. Luckily it was not in my pocket and it didn't catch fire. Just blew up. Lost all my data. Depressing. Well all wasn't well around the southern border today as well .... there were clashes at the Gaza border. A 17 yr old gazan was killed. We hope it'll all pass ... except the lurking fear that the jewish High Holidays is in 48 hours time ... and trouble-makers might use this to ignite more problems.    https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5343284,00.html

Work

Installing the aircons

So the implosion continues to intensify even as the New Year approaches. A teen-age girl ws assaulted allegedly by ultra-orthodox youths in Tiberias last night. The secular jewish community is furious. This incident shows that the ultra-orthodox are now trying to control other parts of Israel ... cities known for liberalism and secular lifestyle. As someone commented ... the war has begun. The New Year period leads to the Day of Atonement ... and all the intervening days are days for repentance ....  https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Religious-youths-attack-teen-girl-for-immodest-clothing-566632

This morning was a whole series of errands  ... I didn't have time to even meet with our lawyers and admin team. I had to deal with visas for nuns stuck at the border, with unpaid phone bills for another convent, with booking Masses for a Kenyan group in Jordan ..... it never seems to end. In this heat I am getting a headache from rushing from one place to another. And the workers have come to install 2 zircons in the library .... a bigger headache as we have to move the enormous volumes of ancient manuscripts before they drill holes into the walls .... dust and noise everywhere. But the aircons are necessary as the ancient manuscripts ... some from the Crusader period are in very bad condition. The humidity and heat are destroying them. But it's alot of preparatory work ... moving the manuscripts out of the way, closing the other shelves with plastic wrapping ... Anyway it's lunchtime and the librarians are on their lunch break. I have to stay back to check on the aircon work as the 500 yr old gates have been opened for the installation. We don't want cats, rats and other unwanted visitors in the library.

Pigeons feed while workers wait for
jobs at Musrara

My right shoulder has been hurting again ... so much that I barely sleep 3 hours a night. It's excruciating. I ran out of Tiger Balm plastic and it's not available in our pharmacy. So too bad for me. Still I really shouldn't be complaining. This morning as I came home from Mass walking through the Musrara market ... the usual crowd of day-workers were sitting with coffee, waiting for some employer to drive along and hire them for the day. Some had hands in bandages, others were old men who needed to feed families, others were barely 16 yr old kids with dirty torn clothes ... all waiting to earn 200 shekels or so today for some very hard work. They have a truly hard life. So I have nothing to complain as I can't compare with them.

St. Teresa feast day

Dawn

Today is the feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta. I had Mass on Mt. Calvary with the MC sisters. There was a small crowd that joined in as well. It's been 62 years since she was inspired by the words on Calvary "I thirst" and founded the society of sisters. Buona festa. I did so much wanted to eat a nice breakfast to celebrate the feast day but there was so much work I had no breakfast at all.

Autumn is well underway as the sun rises now at about 4.30am (3.30am solar time). At the height of summer the muezzin sings the pre-dawn call to prayer at 2.30am solar time. That's really a trial when you want to sleep. But the nights are getting longer so all the better for us. I just so happen not to like the cold that comes with it. Soon the jewish New Year and feasts will come and our streets will be busy again in the night with jewish religious people going to pray at the Wailing Wall. But the Priestly Blessing will also take place on the 3rd day of the Feast of Booths (Sukkoth) so that will be something I look forward to. I go to the Wailing Wall where the jewish priests give the blessing of Aaron.

I have a very tight schedule this Saturday due to my confusion of dates: 8am Mass, 8.15 meeting and 9am conference. I will have to cancel something. I just am unable to remember anything anymore. During classes I find myself lost and students have to finish the sentence for me. I go to places and forget what I'm supposed to do there. This is dreadful. Someone laughed and said it's dementia. Could well be!

The typhoon in Japan was quite a whopper ... this year we've had a whole series of earthquakes, volcano eruptions and typhoons. This is apocalyptic ...  a harbinger of worse things to come?

Of parks and peace

Rockefeller Park upgraded

This morning while walking to the Ivrea convent for Mass, I noticed the streets were more crowded than before. The school year has started of course. Lots of students some as young as 7 yrs old were walking to bus stops and road corners waiting for their transport. It brought me to think back 40 years ago when I too was a primary school student ... the excitement of the new school year, the smell of new books, the routine of studying and homework and exams. It's really amazing how time flies, and I'm very grateful for the opportunities I had in education. Around the streets this morning were also other kids who were selling bread, coffee or doing house chores ... the less fortunate who have no education.

Rockefeller Park

I usually have to stop along the way to the convent because I get very breathless and dizzy. And nicely situated is the Rockefeller Park ... next to the Rockefeller museum. Back in Crusader times this area was the agricultural grounds of the crusaders. Anyway the stop at Rockefeller Park is always great ... smell of the wet grass, the olive trees, the cypress trees ... cats playing in the grass, birds waking up and chirping. It's so different from being cooped up in the stone walls of the Old City.

Since I came over 2 decades ago, the park was in ruins ... the 1st Intifada had destroyed not only the place but also the joy of the East Jerusalemites ... long wild grass, litter, maybe even snakes. It was a no fun place, no hope, no joy ... except for druggies. Then Israel bang to pump money into East Jerusalem to upgrade its facilities and ... we have a new park. Up to the standard of those parks in West Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Simply amazing. But don't expect gratitude from the east jerusalemites. Just know that it's one step to peace ... when families can come to picnic in a  safe and beautiful place, where young men come to use the gym equipment free of charge ... they don't feel less privileged than the Israelis .... that creates less animosity and jealousy from not having. This is a very smart move by Israel. That's the direction to go. When you create situations where the arabs have less to complain about, you have moved forward in peace.

Well as I said many times, Israel's greatest enemy is not from the outside but from the inside ... the implosion from within, from religious and political factions attacking each other. That was the cause of the 2nd Temple's destruction and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Somehow we never learn from history and humanity is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

Another week

Burst water pipe 

What a busy Sunday yesterday ... I had the 6am Mass on Mt. Calvary then the rest of the day was spent translating a speech. It was rather philosophical so it was quite difficult and took me a good part of the day to complete. The 5.30am walk to the Holy Sepulchre for Mass was quite an adventure though ... we had a major water pipe burst in front of Ecce Homo convent ... 10 meters from our door. Workmen were shouting almost all night and nothing was done. Water was gushing out of a manhole and the entire Via Dolorosa was inundated with a river flowing down all the way to the 5th Station. I wasn't prepared for that so my shoes were all wet when I got to Calvary. The walk back home was equally wet.

Chapel of the Prison
of Christ 

One thing though, when I was in the Holy Sepulchre (Calvary is situated inside it) I noted that the decade long renovations at the Greek Orthodox chapel of the "Prison of Christ" was quite finished. A chancel was added and an altar was created on the right of the chapel. I wonder when they will actually complete the renovation and reopen the chapel. Probably another decade if we're lucky.

Anyway I managed to complete the translation late in the afternoon and was mentally exhausted. I took a walk in the cool evening to clear my head ... of course realising that I did not do my Sunday shopping or laundry or room-cleaning yet. My diabetes must be quite bad because for the 2nd day now I am very thrifty and dry in the mouth ... and some other symptoms. I had missed daily my 4km for 3 days now due to work so my sugar level must have risen. Sr. Amrutha form our a kitchen, a former nurse in Cairo, told me it probably is diabetes and urged m to go to hospital for a checkup. Well ... when I have the time. Today the symptoms continued but I was filled with appointments ranging from visa of the sisters, to Post Offices taxes, to meeting with the banks to close one account and open another for the libraries .... and they're all some 4 kms apart uphill and downhill. Needless to say I did;t have time to see the doctor. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

All's not well today on a national level. A terrorist stabber was shot dead near Hebron. There were riots in an arab village near Bethlehem slated for demolition. Foreign Ministry employees protest salary conditions (they went on strike a couple of years ago ... embassy services around the world were affected), and the Filipino president has come for a 3 day visit. That means more road closures and inconveniences for us. He's not a religious man so he'll never go to the Holy Sepulchre. At least that street won't be blocked. The Chief Rabbi has waded into the Nation-State Law debate, supporting an amendment which will include the Druze (not the other minorities) because they had been loyal defenders of Israel.

Mooncake

After Sabbath
prayers

This is getting quite predictable ... Fridays here in Jerusalem pass off serenely. Then in the evening I read the news of clashes at the Gaza border. Last night's report says over 100 injured. Well you just never know what happens next. Or where. One thing's for sure ... the jewish high Holy Days are coming and security will be stepped up. However since the last Yom Kippur war, there has been few incidents during the autumn feasts which include the New Year (Rosh haShanah), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and the 8 days of Sukkoth (Feast of Tabernacles). I doubt this year will be any different. We're all tired of violence. Right now ... an ambulance is passing by my window. I wonder what happened. Maybe I spoke too soon.

We're just bracing for news about the upcoming Syrian war in Idlib ... the last stronghold of ISIS. Casualties will be high and both the armies will be merciless. How dreadful.

Anyway it's Sabbath. The City as usual is deadly quiet. I had planned to take a walk around the lovely northern  neighbourhood of Ottoman bungalows and villas ... but was caught up with an assignment that I must finish asap. So it's work as usual. I might just go for a walk later in the evening when it gets cool. Today is 32 degrees maximum at 3pm. I'm staying indoors till the sun sets.

Mooncake!!

The Feast of Sukkoth falls on the same day as the Mid-Autumn Festival ... a celebration of the full moon. Linda and Billy from Mian restaurant gave me a mooncake (double yolk lotus paste) which was very nice of them. I shan't be celebrating it much as the chinese sisters and friars are all busy guiding groups. And anyway I start my preaching schedule tomorrow till Oct. 1st. Very intensive and hectic as it's 30 days flat with no rest days. September is not going to be fun.