Bethany, St George Monestry & Jericho

As mentioned in yesterdaays journal I invited Fr John to join today if he would like to do so, and provided Samier the taxi driver did not mind it.

We had breakfast together in the convent and then off we went to meet with Samier. He had no problems with Fr J joining us. We started by driving out of Bethlehem over the Judaean Desert. Samir mentioned that yesterday an arab had been killed in gun fire in Bethany and we would need to see if it was safe to go in to the city. He did not know the facts surrounding the killing. The road was very good, first it climbed up, then right down, and then again it climbed. We had two places to visit here one was the Tomb of Lazerus situated in the West bank town of Al Eizariya in bible known as Bethany. This town was on the way to Jerusalem from Galilee. and he was friends with Lazarus and his two sisters Martha and Mary. In parishes around the world there is the Martha ministry as she was the one who was looking after her guests, cooking, cleaning etc. Where as Mary preferred to listen to Jesus. Lazerus was sick and the two sisters sent word for Jesus to come and heal his friend their brother, but he did not come and Lazurus died and was buried in the cave. When he finally did come the sisters were not too happy with him for not coming and saving their brother, as they knew he had cured many people before and he could have done this for his friend too. But Jesus then gets the cave opend and asks Lazerus to walk out, of course as in the customs of those days the body is washed, annointed and bandaged for buriel. Lazerus does walk out in his bandaged body. This was one of the miracles of Jesus stated in the gospel of John Chapter 11:1-45.

To Imagine that this happened so many long years ago, The bible stories were true, someone did not just write these because they had too much time in their hands. In 2021, I had made a new year resolution to read the entire bible from the first page to the last. and for the first time in my life I did do this. and now the bible was comin to life for me, I was in a place, town, area that Jesus frquented what a privilage to do this. We first went to the church of Lazerus, there was a mass going on. Mosaic remants from the old church were on display at the new church.

From there we went off to see St Georges Monestry, this place has no Biblical reference instead there was a monk who wanted to get away from people so he went and camped up in the Judaean Desert, but then people came to see him, so he went in further to the desert and yet again people came loking for him. He did this 3 times, finally he gave up and started building this monestry. It is litterlay in the middle ofnowheree. A story to say here is that, there is parabel of Jesus where he talks of a shepherd. Who has 100 sheep and if he looses one sheep he will go looking for this sheep. Looking around me I see a Bedouin looking after his flock and could so well relate to his parable in a real life value way and the spiritual message of the parable too. After turning back on to the main road we come to the point where we are below sea level.

After that we were off to the oldest and lowest city in the world known as Jericho to see the tree of Zacchaeus & the church of the prophet Elisha. Yesterday Samier had been quite talkative, but today as Fr J was giving me a tutorial of the Bible, history and theology, Samier was quite most of the time. but when we came to Jericho,Samier says do you know where the true sycamore tree is in Jericho, and Fr replies "Yes", it is in the Greek Authodox church compound. Not where some of the tourist are taken too. As the true tree is dead now, and only the stump remains. So Samier says ok Fr you know your stuff, how many times have you been to the Holy Land and Fr J says about 35 times. The Greek A Church had very beautiful colour paint all through it.

Tomorrow Fr J is off to Hebron, but after that he was comin g back to Jerusalem, so we are hoping to meet in Jerusalem. At this moment I will like to say coming to Palestine had been a concern, as I mentioned yesterday, and going out of Bethlehem on my own had also been a worry. I always said though I have to Trust God, in 2020 I wanted to do this trip and it was cancelled due to Covid. This year I had read all of Fr James Martin's book, made note, under lined, cross referenced, made my itinerary based on fact. ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT GOD HAS INDEED TAKEN CARE OF ME, BY NOT ONLY MAKING THINGS FALL INTO PLACE , BUT ALSO GIVING ME A SHEPHERD WHO WAS LEADING ME IN THIS JUDEAN WILDERNESS. Are these things happening as a co incidence. Fr J and two friends were coming to the Holy Land, his two frineds could not take the flight as they did not have their travel insurance to Israel, which is a must since Covid. He came to the same convent that I was staying, and today he had no plans. He came here only because tomorrow he was off to Hebron. chances are if he arrived with his friends they would have been group and I would be alone. To find some one who was teaching me stuff, making events and places in the Bible click into place did not just happen. So especialy to my family I say, I know you do not believe in God and the faith I have, but remember these things that are happening did not just happen, but some internvention is taking place. :)

Then we were off to the Mount of Temptation. This was where Jesus had been fasting and praying for 40 days and 40 nights. One might say that 40 days the body cannot go without food, and that would be true in todays life. but remember in Jesus's day there were hardy people, who did not have cars and planes, but mainly walking, donkeys if your lucky etc. He was also in the prime of his life. When you see the Judaean Desert such a harsh place to survive, the heat, the snakes, wolves, scorpians to name a few of the obstacles it was indeed a feat. We looked at the caves from a far, as if we wanted we could have taken an gondola to the top, but Fr J said there was nothingmuch to see there so we did not bother going up there.

Then we were off to see the baptisamal site, This and the mount of temptation were not in my list of places to see, so these were added bonus. :). Once we got to the baptisimal site yet again it was a spiritual experience to be in a place close to or in the visinity of what the actual place would have been. to imagine Jesus being baptised and the holy spirit landing and all of this happening was more real now. I could smell and see where the actual even happened. Fr J then said would you like to be baptised again, I could do it for you, and you could do it for me. So we went down to the water and baptised each other.

Then we started coming back to the convent in Bethlehem. It had been really hard for me to get up this morning, my body was saying no and my spirit was saying yes, so I was indeed happy to be on the return trip to the convent. Once in Bethlehem I wanted to see the Milk Grotto, and Fr Said he would come with me. I will though have to go there tomorrow again as my camera ran out of batteries.

On the way back walking to the convent we had fresh Orance Juice and they have this contraption that squeezers and entire orange in one go. Takes about 6 oranges to make a glass. Lovely Jublee. After a rest and a much needed cat nap and wash I heard a lot of noise coming from the city below, so I scooted up and saw that a procession was going through the town. apparently this was the Hamas Muslims doing a protest parade.

After arest and dinner Fr J says lets go for a coffee, so we went off and had Tiramisu and Tea and came back at 11.00pm. At that time of the night the town square was full of young men, saw only 2 women.

Pause for Thought

Lessons learnt from Fr J The four Marian dogmas are  "Mother of God", is "The Immaculate Conception", "The Perpetual Virginity", and "Assumption" form the basis of Mariology.

All the 4 gospels teach us to discover who Jesus was and then how to be a follwer of Jesus is the 2nd lesson learned from Fr JRead more