Eastern Jerusalem

We started today by going to the Mount of Olives, and spent most of the morning in the Garden of Gethsemane, which was a working olive grove, and these days has a lot of churches in it. We started with mass at the chapel of Dominus Flevit (Latin for the Lord weeping), which was very nice (though mass went longer than most of us were expecting, we got used to half-hour masses). The altar piece really motivated me to pray for those who had done Cursillo, as it was a mother hen gathering her chicks, and for my teaching parish which had a large Cursillo group.

Des colores!

As a side note, the majority of the mount is a giant cemetery, as Rabbinic tradition hold the messiah will enter the temple from the golden gate on its east side and the resurrection will begin there. Walking past the cemeteries, we visited the very impressive Russian Orthodox church of Mary Magdalene, which sadly bans cameras in the church.

St Mary Magdalene

Then we went to the Church of All Nations. Like St. Peter in Gallicantu, the name hides a very impressive site, in this case, the rock that tradition (based upon long standing devotion, even pre-Byzantine) holds as the place where Jesus prayed in the garden after the last supper.  It's built over a Byzantine church's plan, and the current church went to the trouble of matching the crusader church's floor mosaics (so I am very impressed).  The name comes because in 1927 when they renovated the current church they asked for support from the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher and got overwhelming support from many nations.  Each of the major donor nations has a mosaic donated to it, most of which are in the domes (of which there are 12: if you're following Theology II's blog, it's similar but a lot smaller than Westminster Cathedral).

The church

After a holy hour there and lunch, we went to the City of David, the oldest part of Jerusalem, and saw the ruins there.  It is a highly controversial site because it is a Palestinian neighborhood that the Israelis are buying up and tearing down so they can do archaelogical digs.  The highlight of the trip was exploring the old water system, and the majority of the group stayed dry and went through the old  Canaanite tunnel, but a few of us (including me, mom, so I didn't "wuss out" like I did at the Dead Sea) went through Hezekiah's tunnel, which he built in anticipation of Assyrian invasion.  It has water in it which is waist-deep for about 5 feet, so I didn't bring my phone.  Both tunnels feed into the pool of Siloam (see John 9).

Looking at the old walls near David's palace

Despite being told that we didn't have any early starts left except for the airport, tomorrow we are getting up very early to walk the length of the western wall (or wailing wall). But to make up for it, we are having mass at the birthplace of John the Baptist, which then and now is in a suburb of Jerusalem.