With Open Doors

See the previous post.

My last supper in Jerusalem was lovely. The biggest surprise was that I thought I had taken some pasta from among the cold salads. It was white asparagus in a white sauce, tasty! The carved- on-the-spot lamb was delicious. Turkey schnitzel is always fun for me. Among the other salads that I chose were eggplant and stuffed artichokes. I ate outside in the cool air. A great way to end my stay in Jerusalem.

My knee was feeling much better this morning, so I decided to give it a try. The walk would normally have taken me fifteen minutes, one way, so fifty minutes each way with a cane wasn’t too bad. I wanted to visit the grave of Sister Salvatorina, who died in a car crash on Christmas Eve 2010 with two other sisters who were on their way from the Sea of Galilee to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas. Sister Salvatorina always took good care of me when she was the sacristan on the Mount of Beatitudes. Every time I saw her she made a point of telling someone, anyone who was near by, that I brought her a missal in English one year, which she had requested for her work with English pilgrims. Her death was, of course, sudden, so I did not get to say good-bye. I wanted to pay my respects. I stood by the place where she was buried and prayed for her and the other sisters, “O God, so often and so well Sister Salvatorina, Sister Rania and and Sister Valeria gave hospitality to pilgrims. Offer the divine hospitality of your heaven to them, now that they have finished their pilgrimage of life.”

There is a chapel here in the Notre Dame Center. Yesterday my knee and I were in the chapel singing to ourselves and sitting together quietly and reading from our “Give Us This Day.” We enjoyed this reflection about Jesus and the woman of Nain. Perhaps the charm was that we are sitting in the Holy Land, not real near but close to Nain. Perhaps it was that we realized that, once we are back on our feet and are back home, we might use some of these thoughts for a homily at a funeral. We are all, and always, on a journey in the city of Nain.

Not the top floor, but one down from the top, with my windows both open – this is where my knee and I have been spending our nights and most of our days, taking it easy and propped up. Eating lunch of chicken shwarma by myself on the veranda of the Notre Dame Center, I looked up and saw three people standing at my table, looking down at me: George, Rawan and Father Humam. They all work at the Latin Patriarchate. I have met each of them over the years in some capacity or another. They now work together. It is something, I do not know what, but it something to have three wonderful people working in this wonderful land among this wonderful people in the name of our wonderful God all recognize me and call me by name. God has been so good to me. After lunch I began reading a book about Pope Francis. The words “authenticity” and “authentic” keep coming to mind. An African priest, seeing that I was walking with a cane, said, “In Africa, as have an expression: if is it too easy, we don’t remember it!” Finally, I do not remember the origin of these next two sentences, but they appear in my journal entry for 12 June and are too good to waste: I am finding what God gives, and resting in his giving. People should be able to see our experience of God in our face, all over our face, without us saying a word.

Using a cane for the last two days, I noticed how often people damn near run down a man walking with a cane. With the ice and cane to help me, I have made up my own version of a verse for the Bible: “In life something sometimes ties you down and keeps you from doing what want to do or going where you want to go. Deal with it!” I must note that the knee has slowed me down. And I am now noticing those who walk with ease, and I am now noticing those who don’t. Before now, I didn’t much notice either.

I was walking from the Notre Dame Center, where I am staying in Jerusalem, down the hill, as in across the Kidron Valley, when I heard something from my knee that sounded like the noise that you make when you crack your knuckles. If felt like the knee was collapsing from under me. It really hurt to walk. Using any fence or post or street pole to help, I made my way toward the church that marks the place of the agony of Jesus on Holy Thursday night. Great, I had three days in Jerusalem to do nothing or to do whatever I wanted, and my knee gives out! Yeah, I know: “Not my will, but his will be done. May I will want he wants, and want what he wills. There is blessing and better life in everything.” But how about for now, “May my will be done. May my will be his.”

I entered the Church of All Nations in the Garden of Gethsemane, and spotted Father Placido sitting at his post in a dark corner to the left with a tiny lamp lighting his desk as he read (or prayed, I did not know which). When he saw me standing in front of him, he stood up, hugged me and cried, so happy he was that I came to visit him. With my bum knee (look for an explanation in another post), he welcomed me in, listened to my woes, and brought me a chair to elevate my knee. Unreligiously, I moaned, “No, not His will, but mine be done!” I was in agony, you know. Did God not see that? Father took me to a seat in the sanctuary around the rock of agony, where a Spanish group was having Mass. I looked at the rock during Mass, and was grateful for Communion. Father brought me a cane to use on my way, and called a taxi, so that I would not need to walk back to the hotel. I asked him to draw me a map to the place where Sister Salvatorina is buried (that will be in another post as well). There were only two things that I “had” to do during my three days in Jerusalem: see Father and visit Sister’s grave. On the map that he drew for me I asked that he write a note to Judy, the teacher from St. Lawrence who came to Jerusalem with the HOPE teachers last year. Placido and Judy hit it off immediately when the three of us prepared for Mass last June. They shared hugs and smiles then. They remain in each other’s memory still. “Ah, Judy!” he said wrote his note

Among the olive trees that will be taken, among the olives trees with Father Mario at my side at Mass, among the olive trees with the Israeli settlement of Gilo on the horizon that lusts to fill in the valley with more homes in which only Israelis ca live, I prayed – or did I protest?