Friday. To the Temple excavations where we saw helpful films. The street is Herodian and we saw the steps to the temple where Jesus and Paul were. At St Anne' church (Crusader) we saw the "birthplace of Mary". The Pool of Bethesda was poorly excavated. The Via Dolorosa where 4 people each took turns to carry the cross was most moving - unexpectedly so. I have so often been the crucifer but here the weight of the wood on my shoulder bore down on me. And the people just carry on their busy lives in the bazaar just as they did on the first Good Friday! It was helpful to have the Taize chant to keep our concentration as we moved from station to station. At one there were some very noisy kids in a house nearby. At Calvary in the church of the Holy Sepulchre I read the passage about Jesus dying and Liz read the 14th station at the tomb. We queued up to venerate at Calvary and a German party pushed in and were very rude to Dom Brendan who said this was a holy place to no avail. We had an excellent pizza near the 3rd station and Liz was invited to see the chapel there. We went to Ecce Homo to see the Antonine fortress pavement with games played by the Roman soldiers. I played the organ at Mass- it was a split manual electronic with toothpick pedals. Carlos disappeared but made his way back to the hotel!
To Ein Karem - the beautiful church of the Visitation on the hill with lovely frescoes and a wall of Magnificats in many languages. The Church of John the Baptist has horrid tiles and grotto of the "birthplace" but I liked the walls of Benedictus in different languages. I bought a card of the Benedictus and Liz got a cross. We had pistacchio ice cream. In the late evening we returned to the garden of the Church of All Nations for silent meditation among the ancient olive trees. We were fortunate not to be able to go into the church!
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