Today I noticed that they are starting to “decorate” the city for Christmas. I’ll hold off on the pictures until they finish whatever they’re doing, but they are hanging lights in trees and such. I’ve even seen some Santa Clause statues. They very much try to make the westerners feel welcome for Christmas. We did actually get an artificial tree for our residence where we’re staying. So, I guess you’d say it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Bethlehem.

Tomorrow we are heading to Galilee for three days to visit Nazareth, Cana, Mt. Carmel and a few other places. I don’t know what the internet situation will be there, so you may not get an update until we get back on Tuesday. We’ll be going to Galilee for three more days later on, but it will be nice to able to visit the Church of the Annunciation in preparation for Christmas. This has been the greatest Advent ever. I should definitely feel prepared to celebrate our savior’s birth this year. It will be interesting to see how many more pilgrims will have arrived this week. They are hoping for a lot here and we will do our part in celebrating. Now, I’m off to dinner and I’m going to try to do better than the Blues Brothers this time. You are in my prayers.

It’s hard to believe that it was two weeks ago today that I left snowy Chicago for the little town of Bethlehem. I’m starting to kind of feel at home here now. We had a Jesuit come speak to us today about how a Christian could read the Qur’an. Our learning about Islam is a nice compliment to our study of Luke and spirituality. This is really a comprehensive pilgrimage. The weather so far has been beautiful, but they say that the “rainny season” is overdue. This is a desert here, so the locals are very much looking forward to rain, but I’d just asume that if it’s going to rain that it do it at night.

I see by the number of people that are coming to my site now that there are quite a lot of people following my pilgrimage. I’m so happy that people are enjoying my pictures and stories. You really have to be here to experience it, but I’m glad that maybe I can share a little bit with people back home. Let me know if there’s anything you’re interested in that you want me to write about or get a picture of.

View of Bethlehem from my Bedroom Window

Today was basically just a class day. In addition to our two morning classes on the Gospel of Luke and The Spiritual Pilgrim we had an afternoon session on Islam. We had a Muslim come talk to us who specializes in explaining Islam to Christians. It was an extremely informative presentation. I’m learning so much about Islam since I’ve been here. One thing that you can’t miss if you come to Bethlehem is the “Call to Prayer” that is sounded over loudspeakers five times a day from all the Mosques. One of the pillars of Islam is that they pray prescribed prayers five times a day. If you’ve ever seen a Mosque, they have tall towers on them called minarets. In previous times a specially designated person, called a Muezzin, would climb to the top of this tower and chant an invitation to let people know it was time for prayer. This is not unlike the use of bell towers for us Christians to call people to prayer. In some ways, it’s like the angelus. However, in modern times the Muezzin has been replaced by a recording that is broadcast loud enough to be heard for miles and this does, in my opinion, make it way more annoying than the sounding of bells. As kind of a funny story, after being woken up at 4:30 each morning for the first couple nights, one person in our group jokingly exclaimed in frustration, “We have got to convert these people!” In fairness, even the Muslim who did our presentation said that he thought the pre-dawn call to prayer is rather insensitive to the Christians in the area. I do have to say though that I’m not really so bothered by the call to prayer. I actually kind of like the idea. Every time I hear it, I know that they are praising God for everyone to hear. If you think about it, we are constantly bombarded with noise in our Western culture. Here, the noise is just proclaiming how great God is and that it’s time for prayer. When the call to prayer wakes me up at 4:30, it’s a good time to pray the Office of Readings. After all, Christians have been praying five times a day in the Liturgy of the Hours long before the Muslims started. I bet they got the idea from us (and we probably stole it from the hours of offering in the temple). After singing some verses from the Qur’an, the Muezzin sings the following call to prayer

God is great; God is great (Allah Akbar!);
I attest that there is not (another God), except God;
I attest that Mohammad is the chosen of God;
Arise! (Come) to prayer;
Arise! (Come) to salvation (at Dawn – prayer is better than sleep)
God is great! God is great!
There is not (another God), except God.

That doesn’t really sound so bad now does it? Admittedly, it can sound like quite a cacophony when every Mosque in the city is playing this as loud as they can at the same time. However, when I remember that they are just yelling how great God is, then it kind of makes me feel good.

Allah Akbar! God is Great!

 The Mosque of Omar at Manger Square

We had Mass this morning at the St. Catherine’s Catholic Church which is connected to the Church of the Nativity. This church functions as a parish church here in Bethlehem and so the Mass was in Arabic. I was hoping for some Latin at some point so I could pray along, but the only words I could recognize were the Kyrie and Hosanna. After Mass the priest met with us to talk about the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. The Franciscan order has been taking care of all the holy Christian shrines ever since the time of Francis. It seems that his peaceful nature made him acceptable to both Christians and Muslims. After this talk I went down to the cave of the nativity and spend about 2 hours just sitting by the manger and praying. It’s such a luxury to be able to have time to do that here. We’re not tourists that have to run on to “see” the next thing right away. For a while it was just me down in the cave praying. We’re starting to see other pilgrims starting to arrive now so I imagine things are going to start to get busier. All the merchants and shop keepers are really counting on many people coming for Christmas. The whole economy here is dependent on tourism and recent times have been tough. I pray that many pilgrims will come.

St. Catherine’s Catholic Church

Today we had our “official” tour of the Church of the Nativity with a professional guide. As we walked to the church she pointed out the various places in the city where they really fixed up the buildings in honor of the visit of John Paul II in 2000. Unfortunately, there was a big Palestinian uprising after that and now everything is in bad shape again. As you visit the Church of the Nativity you can’t help but run into the complicated issue of what is known as the “Status Quo”. Basically, there are at least 5 different altars in the church to accommodate all the different Christian rites. The “Status Quo” refers to the system of rules that govern who can say Mass where and who can say what prayers here or there.

When Pope Benedict recently went to Turkey he referred to this separation among Christians as a scandal to the world and it is very evident here. In the cave where Jesus was born there are two altars. The Orthodox and Armenians are the only ones allowed to use the altar over the star and the Catholics are allowed to use the altar by the manger. There’s a certain little area that the Catholic priest has to stay in so as not to cross into the Armenian territory. It borders on the ridiculous. There are so many Muslims here that you would think the Christians would be a pretty tightly knit group. However, it seems that perhaps the greatest signs of division here are not between Christians and Muslims, but among the Christians ourselves.

After our tour of the church I went to Bethlehem University with a number of other seminarians to play volleyball with the students. It was a great time. We are really coming to value the friends we have made at Bethlehem U. This was our night to go out to dinner so we thought we’d sample the local food. We ended up having cheeseburgers at a restaurant named Bonjour that was playing Spanish music while we watched the Blues Brothers on TV with Arabic subtitles. We’ll have to do better next time.

The Monastery of Mar Saba

After our regular morning classes today we took our first “field trip”. Our first destination was to a remote monastery founded by Mar Saba (Saint Saba), a Byzantine hermit from what I think was the 7th century. As our bus left the city of Bethlehem, it didn’t take long to see just what a desert this place really is. As we got further and further out in the middle of nowhere I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could live out here. We eventually arrived at the very simple monastery located basically on the side of a cliff. As much as life in a monastery out in the middle of the desert seemed to be difficult enough to me, our guide told us that the monks actually lived in caves in the side of the cliffs and only came to the monastery once a week. They ate only bread and water and, once, a monk was caught dipping his bread in his water and was immediately punished by the Saintly founder. As I looked at the monastery I assumed we were looking at a historic site that had been preserved for us to look at. However, we then realized that there were still monks living here. It is the oldest continually occupied monastery in the world. About dozen Greek Orthodox monks live there now in much the same conditions as those first monks in the 7th century. It’s a great witness to see how, in this age of technology and constant communication, God still plants a desire in certain people to get away and leave it all to go be at peace and pray. I think there’s a little bit of that in all of us. As we read the Gospel of Luke in class I notice how Jesus even needs to get away by himself and pray. The monastery of Mar Saba and the life of the monks I envision live there does have a sort of appeal to me. The monks don’t live in the caves any more, so we rang their bell, hoping to meet them and see the monastery, but they were busy praying…which seemed rather fitting to me and so I was not too disappointed. An interesting note is that our guide is the same guide the Mundelein pilgrims had 7 years ago when we last had the pilgrimage quarter in the Holy Land. To give you an idea of how remote and desolate this place is, the guide said the last time he had been to Mar Saba was seven years ago with the previous Mundelein pilgrims.

Pictures Inside Church at Shepherds’ Fields

After our visit to Mar Saba we went to the location of the Shepherds’ Fields where the angels appeared to the shepherds announcing the birth of Jesus. This location has had some kind of a monument marking the spot since at least the 4th century and a monastery was first built there about that time as well. The site is located in the hills overlooking a valley with fields below. The fields were somewhat barren at this time of winter, but our guide said that they would be green by March and that shepherds still bring their sheep here. There are caves up in the hills where the shepherds would sleep, and use to bring the sheep inside for protection. We had Mass in one of these caves. I didn’t really know what to expect from our visit to shepherds’ fields, but I ended up having a very powerful experience there. As we finished Mass it was getting dark and I could just picture it being sundown on Christmas Eve 2000 years ago. I found myself looking up at the sky and picturing what this place would look like with “a multitude of the heavenly hosts” all hovering about the sky. I tried to put myself in the place of the shepherds. What a wondrous night that must have been, to hear the voice of the angel…Glory to God in the Highest! The little town of Bethlehem would have been about 20 minutes away. My mind returned back to my visit to the Church of the Nativity and I imaged the shepherds running haste there and entering the little cave to find Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Shepherds’ Fields is such a powerful place to meditate. I really wanted to be there 2000 years ago and be able to observe the scene from my spot on the hill. As it grew darker and became time to leave, I thought in my mind that hopefully in heaven I will be able to come back to this place and really experience what it was like that first Christmas Eve.

 Shepherds’ Fields at Sunset

See More Pictures

The Location of the Manger

Today was an absolutely amazing day. We started with Mass in the cave where Jesus was born. As I mentioned earlier, the original cave is preserved under the sanctuary of the Church of the Nativity. I was the lector for Mass today and there I was, standing at the very place where Jesus was born, proclaiming the words of the prophet Isaiah foretelling the birth of the messiah. You just can’t describe these sorts of events in words. It is amazing how real the incarnation seems when you’re right here in Bethlehem. Jesus was a real person who entered this world as a little baby. Somehow being here makes that historical truth come alive like it never has before. The Christmas story is not just a pious tale here; it’s so real. You can reach out and touch it. You can kneel down and kiss the ground in the middle of the star marking the very spot where Jesus was born. You can sit and contemplate the location of the manger. You can walk the road traveled by Mary and Joseph. You can go visit the field where the shepherds heard the good news. I’ve only been here for 3 days and already the Holy Land is helping to make the Word of God in the Sacred Scriptures become incarnate in me. Praise God!

The Altar Next to the Manger

I think that if all we did today was to have Mass at the manger that would have been more than enough. However, just the morning contained another amazing experience. I went to visit the church called The Milk Grotto. This church is built over another cave that is believed to be the place where Mary and Joseph stayed in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus. The story behind the name is that while Mary was nursing the baby Jesus, some drops of milk fell to the ground. The stone in this cave is all very uniquely white and this legend is given to explain it. A wonderful Franciscan priest served as our tour guide. He indicated that whether you believe the legend or not he has had his faith strengthened by the presence of the Holy Family at this location, particularly in regard to the many miracles related to the family that have taken place. You see at some point this white powdery stone began being used by couples who were infertile to help them conceive a child. The priest showed us their office that is covered with pictures of families with new babies who had previously been infertile. They’ve got doctors’ notes from women who were medically sterile who conceived. Basically the husband and wife mix some of the white powder from the grotto with water and drink it and pray the 3rd joyful mystery of the Rosary and God is able to work a miracle because of their faith. The other neat thing about this church is that they are building a beautiful new upper church all with aide from the annual collection taken up for the Holy Land. That second collection for the Holy Land that comes around each year is a lot more meaningful to me now that I see exactly how much good it can do. I had never heard of this Milk Grotto church before, but there is definitely something special going on there. I will surely go back there to invoke the intercession of the Holy Family.

Milk Grotto Church and Miracle Testemonies

In the afternoon I experienced what may have been the highlight of the trip so far. As strange as this may sound after hearing everything I’ve mentioned so far, this highlight came not at a major holy shrine, but at Bethlehem University. This is a Catholic University run by the Christian Brothers. However, as the population in Bethlehem is now a Muslim majority, the student population is about 60% Muslim and 40% Christian. Our visit included presentations by the faculty and then time to talk and have lunch with the students. We have been getting talks each day about the political and religious situation. It’s all very fascinating, but also difficult to understand. I have to admit that I didn’t even really know who the Palestinians were before this week. You think you know from hearing things on TV, but the reality of the situation here is really quite different. For the past few days I’ve been walking the streets here and seeing all kinds of people and not getting to talk to any of them very much. Today we got to talk to university students our own age and hear their story. These are just absolutely amazing people. Most of the people I talked with today were Muslims, but also some Christians. This is a land filled with tension and deep division, but when you walk into the main square of Bethlehem University you see young Muslims and Christians just hanging out and having fun in a way that looked to me much like any college campus in the US. I can’t help but think that this is how peace must come about. It’s a lot harder to speak negatively about “them” when “them” happens to include your friend and classmate that you see every day. I had some great conversation with the students today that I shall not soon forget. I was so happy to be able to meet these wonderful people and to ask them questions and get to know them and their history. The things going on at Bethlehem University are a great sign of hope for the future.

Students at Bethlehem University

Despite the hope that I saw today, I also learned a lot about the sad political situation. Again, I have to admit that I never really realized that all of what we would now call the Holy Land, part of which is Israel, has all been the country/territory of Palestine since shortly after the time of Christ with the Diaspora of the Jews. For almost 2000 years the Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims, had lived here in peace with the remaining Jews. However, in 1948 the UN basically invented the state of Israel and Jews began moving into the region and kicking the Palestinians out of their homes and taking their land. Most of you probably know this, but I never really realized that Bethlehem is not in Israel…it’s in the West Bank, which is some of the land that the Palestinians were allowed to keep. However, the Israelis have continued to take more and more of the Palestinian land, basically just because they have the stronger military and can take what they want. This all became real to me today when we went up on the roof of one of the University buildings to see a panoramic view of the surrounding area. One of the first things that became very obvious was this big wall that the Israelis are building. Nothing represents division and hatred better than a wall and this was the sad site from my viewpoint today. As we looked out and saw Jerusalem not far off in the distance, one young Palestinian woman I was talking to explained how she is not allowed to go to Jerusalem. There are checkpoints all along this wall and it is illegal for Palestinians to enter Israeli territory. She said that if a car approached a checkpoint with a Palestinian in the car the driver would be fined $10,000, arrested, and his license revoked. The vice chancellor of the university here told us of one of their students who died because he was not allowed to cross the border to get medical attention he had previously been receiving in Jerusalem. Here’s another thing that surprised me…there are no Jews in Bethlehem. It’s illegal for them to cross the border going the other way. The Israelis will not allow them to enter the West Bank. From the roof we could also see the “settlements” where Israelis are building cities in Palestinian territory. When you hear about “settlements” on the news I pictured some little tent cities or something, but they’re actually building big buildings right in the face of the Palestinians while pushing their walls further and further forward into the West Bank. This whole situation is just a lot different than you would imagine from the American media. I pray that the friendships and understanding being formed here at Bethlehem University will spread and at some point we will learn the ridiculousness of building walls between people, both physical and figurative. I know I learned a lot today and am thankful for my new Palestinian friends, both Muslim and Christian.

The Wall Separating West Bank from Israel

Oh, I almost forgot…we’re also having class here. After coming back from the University we had a session of our class on the Gospel of Luke. Again, it’s the strangest thing to read about the places and events of Jesus’ birth and be able to know that you touched the place just a few hours earlier. We are also having a class on the spirituality of pilgrimage. When we go to Jerusalem we will switch classes and study the Acts of the Apostles and Church Architecture History.

As if all this wasn’t enough for today, we finished up by going to the seminary for the Latin Rite diocese of Jerusalem. We had evening prayer together that including the seminarians here chanting in Arabic while we interspersed our English. We were all able to pray the Pater Noster together and pray for each other. Their English is very good as is the case with most people we meet. We then shared a wonderful meal and fellowship together. These are such great men who have a real sense of mission to serve the very small Christian population that remains here in the Holy Land. The rector told us that there are about 300,000 Christians in the Holy Land and about 70,000 of those are Catholic.

What a day this has been. I think one of the most important things I found today was just how much, now matter where you go, people aren’t all that different. No place could have seemed more foreign to me than the Middle East before I came here. Already that has started to change as the people who seemed so strange from so far away are actually very friendly and wonderful people who I look forward to getting to know more and more over the coming months. God has given so many graces today that I just can’t put them all in words, but I hope you enjoyed a little bit of my reflections. I won’t probably be able to write so much in the future, but this is the first time I’ve had to really write anything substantial. Let me know if there are any questions or things you’d like to know about or see pictures of. You are also of course in my prayers.

See More Pictures

Entrance to the Church of the Nativity

Today I spent the entire morning at the Church of the Nativity. What an amazing experience! Like millions of pilgrims before, I arrived at the special place of pilgrimage and bowed my head to enter the small door. The door to the church is only about 4 feet high and is known as the “Door of Humility”. Everyone must bend down to enter. There is of course the spiritual significance of this action, but I’m told that it was also done for practical reasons as the door used to be much larger and soldiers would ride their horsed into the church.

The Door of Humility

Once inside, the church itself is not particularly impressive. The architecture is quite a mix of things and it is, for the most part, unornamented. There are openings in the floors that reveal the original mosaic floor from the 4th century. The main altar is used primary by the Greek Orthodox. It and the iconostasis were a gift from Russia. There are also remnants of a few mosaics on the walls. The church has seen many changes over the years, but remains very old by any standard.

Inside the Church of the Nativity

The most important part of the church, of course, has nothing to do with the architecture or how it looks. Right below the main sanctuary you are able to descend into the cave where Jesus was born. I will devote a future entry to my reflections on this site and will just show some pictures for now. Needless to say, this was a powerful experience. Since we will be here for 4 weeks, I’m sure I will return often.

Me at the Birthplace of Jesus

In the cave there is a star marking the place where Jesus was born. It says simply “Hic de Mariae Virginae Jesus Christus Natus Est…Here of Mary the Virgin Jesus Christ Was Born”. I can’t begin to describe what it’s like to read that and know the “here” really means “right HERE”. Again, more on that later.

Star Marking the Birthplace of Jesus

Not far from the star marking the place of Jesus’ birth is the spot where the manger was in which Mary put Jesus to sleep. I am almost out of time for today. So I will write more later. If you’d like to see all the pictures I took today please look and I’ll update some captions for them as I go explaining what everything is. This place is amazing!

See More Pictures