SOME PICS OF JERUSALEM

At the end of this week, and with one week to go, I thought I would put together some of the faces of Jerusalem. Some of these make me smile, some make me curious, while others cause me some concern. Double click the pic to make it bigger.  On the above left you can see the two extremes on our Course: Fr Greg is a normal 175cm tall while Fr Julian is a whopping..well what is 7 foot in metres?

Above right you see a young man on his way to his Barmitzvah. This is like Jewish 'Confirmation' in the Christiann understanding. I have to say, if our young people celebrated the sacraments this way we would have no worries filling our churches. The lads in front of him are whooping and hollowing to cheer him on. He is sitting on his Godfather's shoulders. I don't think they are so enthusiastic with the circumcision ceremony! He even has four shade bearers. How cool is that, excuse the pun?

The next two pics are a little sad: A peace dove with a flack jacket and rifle target aimed at the heart, and then some of the Israeli police arguing with a Muslim chap on his way to Friday prayers. I did not stick around, but I am sure the Palestinian lost the argument. (If there are no more Blogs from me then you know the Israeli intelligence is monitoring this site.) What am I saying? Israeli Intelligence...they are so secret they do not even know what they are doing.

I like this pic of the two Fransicans on the right as we finished the Stations of the Cross down the Via Delorosa. One is carrying a portable loud speaker system and they are both so pleased to escape the thousand pilgrims that they have just led. There is a big statue of St Francis in the background seemingly saying "welcome back boys. You made it...'til next Friday"!

I hope you get some understanding of my trip and especially the Holy Land. It is a mass of contradictions that require loads of PEACE, PRAYER and us to take on a PROJECT that might help what is left of the 2 percent of Christians that are left here. The t-shirt on the left summs up the local sentiment from the Jewish world. How about we do something for the Christians who are still trying to survive here? The Latin Patriarch for Jerusalem says we should keep sending PILGRIMS. Any takers next year?

This page is dedicated to all those who pray and work for peace in the Holy Land, and especially to those Christians who live their lives as true Christians. "Pace e Bene" , as St Francis said.