big, biG, bIG, BIG ADVENTURE - the end
This morning I leave Jerusalem after what has been one of the most amazing and memorable weeks of my almost 39years of life. Let me tell you a little about the place I was staying. In Italian it’s called San Salvatore, in English St Saviours. Did you ever watch ‘The Name of the Rose’ with Sean Connery? Well, it’s a bit like that x 2. Located about 200metres away from the Holy Sepulchre it has been the home base of the friars for over 750 years.
Forget the famous people that have stayed in its 150 bedrooms, it is the people who have been held in its dungeon (no bull) that have intrigued me - people like St Ignatius of Loyola (sorry Alex) and an assortment of the kings and princes of Europe and the Middle East. It operates as the ‘mother house’ of the friars in the Holy Land and houses the students, the Custos (ie. the leader, who is a pseudo Bishop as he gets to wear a mitre while he is in the job), a printing press, a music insitute and assorted exotic riff raff (of which there is plenty - think ‘Name of the Rose’ type people) whose job it seems is to pray, eat, sleep and march in procession around the walled city of Old Jerusalem and not much more. I have had a fantastic time, I fit in amongst this group of men who language I can barely understand - but that is okay since most of the friars who live here have never met each other.
Just to fill in time I decided to look at the nationality of the friars in this community. First, I discovered they are classed into language groups and each language group has a representative on the Council. By the way, the number 1 & 2 positions are held by an Italian and a Spaniard - a mix that is strictly maintained. The Language groups are:
French
English
Italian
Oriental (Arabic)
Greek / Slavic
Portugese
& German - this German speakers are listed last, could this have something to do with ‘don’t mentiion the war!’?
Now, …. and this is amazing …. here are the countries of the friars I have spent the last 5 days with. Argentina, Brasil, Britian, Chile, Korea, Croatia, Equador, Egypt, France, Ghana, Japan, Jordan, Indonesia, Iraq (one very brave student), Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Mexico, Holand, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Russia, Syria, Spain, USA, Germany, Venezuela & one Australian.
Like I said - Amazing.
….. more to say but sadly no time …. yesterday we went to Emmaus for the bread blessing (by bus not foot) and the only burning in my heart came from the previous nights pub crawl (You theological types will understand - the rest of you read (or buy) your Bible. Emmaus is in the occupied West Bank, a very tragic situation. The place has suffered with Jewish settlers and Palestians still taking shots (bang, bang shots not tequila) at each other. This morning half the commity will visit the Greek Orthodox and Armenians, a tradition that is hundreds of years old …. we will file past their monastery take bitter bitter coffee and sweet, sweet pastries and move on. Then I catch the bus back home to Nazareth - until Friday when my next big adventure begins.
(…. yes, I know spelling mistakes…..and still no pictures - what am I doing wrong???) Like I said b4 go to www.custodia.org to see some pics.
Posted by
at
05:49:43
You are so powerful!!! My hero!!!