Wednesday was a long, busy day full of lots of blessings and lots of walking. We had our breakfast at 7 am and then headed to the buses for the drive to the Shepherds' Field. Because it is such a busy place (I wonder why), we had mass scheduled at a set time. The time worked out perfectly, as the time in Modesto for our mass here worked out to be midnight; so we ended up having mass where the shepherds had heard the angels announce the birth of Jesus! Again, it was a beautiful mass with Father's homily reminding us of the importance of the birth of Christ to our daily lives. The actual chapel itself was a cave reminding us of how the Holy Family and the shepherds had lived. I noticed in the holes in the ceiling some folded up prayers, similar to how the Jews fill the Wailing Wall.
From the Shepherds' Field we decided to vary our intinerary a little. We were scheduled to visit the Church of the Nativity, but since we had been there already the night before, we detoured to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. We learned from Lazarus, our guide (Tony was at his grandmother's funeral), that all of the buildings in Israel are the same white color because after the creation of the nation in 1948, the Israelis kept the British laws of covering each building with "Jerusalem stone" a local marble. So to this day all construction has the same inch or so covering and are therefore white only.
Upon arriving at the museum, Lazarus pointed out the it isn't really a museum as a museum is fun. The point of this one is not fun, but rather a way of putting a face to the suffering experience by the Jews during World War II. He referred to it the entire time as the Holocaust Memorial Institute. Museum or institute, the place is full of artifacts from the time period including books, clothing, photographs, video from the time an reflections from survivors, etc. It was truly a moving two hours as we zigzagged our way theough the prism shapes building. The architecture is really quite interesting as the building looks like a giant metal prism from the outside. At the top, like from God, are the skylights that let the natural lighting of the place.
We exited, most of on time, just in time to eat a late lunch at the museum/institute's diner. For those of us non-kosher eaters it es an experience. Because kosher Collin does not allow mixing of meat and milk, the vendors for the different products were separate with separate registers. That made it hard for those of us wanting to include in our one price the desert products. Eating the seating for the different lines was kept separate.
After lunch we entered briefly into the VIP section ("very impatient people" according to Lazarus) where the perpetual flame and the names of the 22 nazi death camps. After that we entered into the children's memorial. I imagined kids artwork from the different camps, but that was already in the larger portion. This was actually a very creative display put together by an artist. The idea stemmed from the two sides of looking at the shame of man's inhumanity to man. On one side, a million children were slaughtered. The other side of that is that looking from God's perspective, one child that survives can be the progenitor of another million. The display include the light of one candle inside of a dark room. But, instead of leaving it like that, a set of mirrors continually reflect the light to form a seemingly million points of light. How beautiful, no?
Next, we took the short drive to Ein Karem. You might say, "I never read that name in the Bible," but that is because that is the current Arabic name. The place is actually the birthplace of John the Baptist, and of course, the Visitation. This was where we really earned our pilgrim stripes as we had to walk a long ways between the two sites and then climb the more than 100 steps to reach the Church of the Visitation. It was difficult for some, but all maintained a positive attitude and continues the trek with at least an external smile on their faces.
After the climb back down the hill from the Church of the Visitation, we made the walk back to the bus again for our drive back to Bethlehem. Once there, we parked at our hotel, but did not enter as we had a short period of time before some of the things were goin to close. So in spite of the tiredness of many, we marched up the long set of stairs (not 100 this time, but still) and started walking down the narrow street on the far side of the Church of the Nativity. We were headed to the Milk Grotto. The name reflects the local tradition that the Holy Family had moved to another grotto during Mary's time of purification after giving birth. The walls of the grotto, instead of being reddish or black like the other grottos in the area were a white color. The tradition states that Mary had dropped a few drops of mother's milk which turned the bedrock the white color. Powder from the walls has been for centuries for curing many ailments, but particularly infertility. The walls of the small office/gift shop were covered with pictures of babies that had been born from infertile parents whose only efforts were to consume the powder mixed with water and pray a particular prayer for Mary's intervention to God.
After the group's time to purchase powder and some other items, we walked back to the Church of the Nativity for a tour with explanations from Lazarus. We learned that the Basilica is the oldest church in the Holy Land, having been built over the site of the birth of our Lord by St Helen back in the fourth century. Construction over the years has been chaotic with seemingly random additions added. Walls jutted out from nowhere, previous entrances were covered, etc. The original structure had been spared from the destruction by Muslims as te other churches in the Middle East because of mosaic of the three wise men depicting them dressed in typical Persian clothing. We weren't able to see any of the mosaics or murals as all are covered while the restoration, paid for by the Italian government, is completed.
We were able to enter into the Roman Catholic Church of St Catherine and learn that it's patron in St Catherine of Egypt, who was a arrested and eventually martyred in the sixth century for being a Christian. The church is only 180 years old and is the Catholic portion of the whole complex, the rest of which is shared by Catholics and Orthodox. That "sharing" was readily apparent when we decended below St Catherine's to the tomb of St Jerome.
As we decended the stairs turned towards the rest of the complex and away from St Catherine's actually passing beneath the wall between the two to a spot beneath the shared portion. We ended up in caves which connected to the site of the nativity and the manger (made of rock by the way and not wood as we have always assumed), but there was another lower wall separating the two sides as Catholic and Orthodox. (Midnight mass from Bethlehem transmitted around the world every year is celebrated there.) This division is sad, but as Catholics our interest is in the side where St Jerome had spent time translating the scriptures from Hebrew and Greek to the language of the street, Latin. He had been buried there as we, but his remains were later sent to Rome for burial. I was especially moved by the site, as my good friend, Tyson, has a big devotion to St Jerome. We snuck back over to the site of te nativity for one last visit in a much bigger line than ours from the previous night. It was still moving to touch and venerate those sites where Jesus was born and had been laid.
Our tiring day finally ended by the walk back next door to our hotel for dinner and a restful evening. Our blessings continued flow during our visits to these holy sites. It so moving