Bethlehem/Church of the Nativity/Shepherds' field, the wall
First thing I noticed, approaching the door of the Church of the
Nativity early this morning was the
hodge podgeiness of the entrance.
Pilgrims often enter as we did, not though some elegant garden, but
through a parking lot...with cars in it.
Looking up, maybe twenty feet my
eye was struct by a hugh stone pediment, big enough to get a school bus
through. It was built by the mother of
Constantine the Great, Helena in the fourth century. But it was blocked off
with big, square stones. Below it, about
twelve feet off the ground was an elegant arch created by the crusaders,
sometime around eleven hundred. It was beautiful.
but stoned in. Finally, about five feet
off the ground, an ugly rectangular door that one must walk through in order to
get inside, it spoke volumes. Apparently, sometime after the Crusaders left
people began to bring animals, into the Church.
Tiny door no big animals.
Inside the Church this theme of construction, reconstruction only
heightened. With half of the floor
covered with scaffolding and the other half empty there was nothing happening
there. Yet there was a smell of
antiquity, old dust, and incense and the smell of humanity. But as our guide, Iyad keeps telling us, the
place to look for ancient activity is down, twenty feet down. So we gingerly steeped down very slick and
shiny stone steps until we were in the bowels of the building, the series of
caves which in Mary and Joseph's time was the place where Jesus was born. No timbered European style stable with a
wood cradle full of warm hay, but a simple stone cave with a stone trough that
was used in it's day to feed animals. There
was a depression a hole really, to one side that held several candles that
burned in perpetuity the center of which was a metal and precious stone many
sided star, with another depression, about the size of a softball, which was
supposed to be the exact spot where Jesus was born, an educated guess. We were there with only a few others for the
Eucharist which is said every morning by Franciscan priests. It was a special moment, made even more so as
either coming in we bent to touch the cross.
Just few hours later we
were at the base of the wall, in Bethlehem that separates the part of the town
where Palestinians live from Israel. It
divides neighborhoods, families, gardens, farms, shepherds fields. It was supposed to be 450 or so kilometers
long, it is over 900. I was startled to
see that it did not run next to the settler's communities it was built to
protect, but right on top of the houses and shops of Palestinians. I guess the Israeli government does not want
to have to move the wall when the settlements expand. One of the panels was most powerful for
me.
I was reminded of the communion we had just shared a few hours
before, American Episcopalians and Italian Catholics, with a few other
denominations throw in Im sure.
"This is My blood," the priest said, holding up the cup. "Do this in memory of Me." In whatever way we view the theological
purpose for Jesus' death on the cross, many have said and still say that shed his blood in love for
love. His blood the same color as
ours. Many Christians venerate the Sacratissimi Cordis Iesu, the scared
heart of Jesus. Some images, the ones
that made me so uncomfortable growing up in the Catholic Church showed a heart
bleeding. I thought of that today, the
first time in a long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment