Free Day Deux

So today was our second free day. We started with mass at the Church of St. Anne which is one of the possible spots for the childhood home of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is right next to the old pool of Bethzatha, and there are other better sites that claim the honor, so I don't really buy it.  This morning I worked on my homily then a bunch of us went to get shawarma for lunch.

My homily prep nook. That is an arrow slit in the city wall.
Our hotel's courtyard is back by the wall.

In the afternoon, TJ and I went to the Holy Sepulcher to touch a few rosaries to Golgotha, the anointing stone, and the slab inside the Cenacle, but got delayed because there was a two hour Armenian Orthodox mass at the Cenacle.  While waiting I learned fun things like that Armenian bishops wear two copes while sitting in choir.  In the Holy Sepulcher, the Greek Orthodox monks serve kinda like bouncers to keep the lines moving at the various sites, and the one at the Cenacle nearly took out a guy who was trying to undo the rope blocking the way into the Greek sanctuary after reopening the Cenacle for veneration (the three custodian groups, Armenians, Greeks, and Catholics all have private side chapels framing the Cenacle). I had heard that brawls occasionally break out but I didn't expect to nearly see one.

Since I didn't take pictures I must use old ones
The class of 2015 on the shore of Galilee

Once we were done with that I had to preach, and that went well, though evidently I need to work on my transitions and not speaking to seminarians like they are seminarians (aka providing theological definitions and providing pastoral suggestions and applications) but such is life.  As you can tell, I accept the first critique but the second irks me.

The American dome in the Church of All Nations

Tomorrow we are off to Bethlehem and are having mass at someplace called the Chapel of the milk. I can't wait to find out what crazy story gave it that name.

As a last note, please pray for Archbishop Neinstedt and all those involved in ongoing cases in the Archdiocese.  It has been one month since he withdrew from public ministry, and we want him back.  To be a little selfish and horribly presumptuous, I want to be ordained by him, and so to repeat, please pray for him.