Last scheduled day!

Half of us started today by going to the temple mount. The Dome of the Rock is truly stunning, but I still wish we could have seen the stone it was built around.  We also spent a lot of timing looking at the Golden Gate, where Jews and Muslims believe the Messiah will enter after appearing on the Mount of Olives. Of course, they believe he will do vastly different things once he enters, but either way the gate was walled shut so as to prevent any false Messiahs from entering.

The Dome of the Rock

The site where most of the Second Temple stood

After picking up the other half of the group, we went down the street to the Latin Patriarch's headquarters. Like last year's class, we didn't get to meet the Patriarch but had to "settle" for Bishop William Shomali, one of the associates. He gave us a brief (shorter than today's homily) talk on the Church in the region and we had a very good Q&A session with him.

The group with Bishop Shomali. The antechamber had portraits of
all the Patriarchs of Jerusalem that are saints.  Must be intimidating for
the Patriarch.

After visiting the convent and then the underground complex of the original courtyard of the Antoine fortress, where Jesus stood trail and was scourged, we visited the Ecole Biblique.  As the name suggests, it was founded by French, in this case, Dominicans as a scriptural college to rival the Biblicum in Rome (because it is run by the Jesuits, who fought with everyone).  When they were building their complex, they providentially discovered a Byzantine basilica dedicated to St. Stephen, deacon and protomartyr. They rebuilt it close to the original plan, but may have gotten carried away with the side altars to various Dominican saints.  We had mass in their chapter house, and then got a tour of their complex, which includes a crypt that has the original (although now anonymous) monks from the 5th century monastery. 

The courtyard of the Antoine fortress

The Basilica of St. Stephen

Tomorrow is technically a free day, but we have mass at one of the churches that is still on my list to see.