Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
In 1995, Israel ceded control of Bethlehem to the newly established Palestinian Authority in preparation for a two-state solution to their hostilities. It is a multi-faith city where believers live in relative harmony.
We arrived here on Orthodox Good Friday and at 4:37 am I was woken by the call of prayer which happens here a number of times during the day, especially during the Muslim feast of Ramadan. In Bethlehem, the weekend is Friday and Saturday as the work week commences on a Sunday.
For me, this part of my pilgrimage was difficult. As we drove to our first stop, questions filled my head and a surge of unrest filled me. How can anyone drive past walls and images of assassinated people and be told by our guide about the identification card system and the transport passes, the tools of segregation for the Palestinian people, and not be troubled, in fact, angered? I didn’t realise how angry I was.
I had been fed, or naively allowed myself to be fed, an easy-to-swallow stream of one-sided politics which favored the Israelis. But there was no disguising the reality of the treatment of the Palestinian people. The towering wall loomed large over everything like a prison wall and the irony did not escape me that we were in Bethlehem, the very place where Jesus, the Prince of Peace, was born.
In retrospect, these images were to remain with me for the rest of my pilgrimage experience.
Of course, there was also so much to celebrate. Our first visit for the day was to the Holy Child Program in Bethlehem which serves as a sanctuary of safety for the families of the region. The program facilitates learning and developing new skills, recovery and rehabilitation from trauma among the children. It is a small school which could accommodate many more but there is no space. I felt guilty about the wonderful facilities we have at St Ursula’s and at any school in Australia. A converted rented house is their school. What were once bedrooms and a lounge room are now classrooms where the children happily chatted to us about what they were learning and then very successfully beat us in a game of soccer – a universal language – and we laughed and cheered. Fr Lewi demonstrated some spectacular ball skills even though he was in his cassock. Truly, a pocket of hopefulness.
From here, we went to Bethlehem University where we visited the Chapel of the Divine Child Jesus which is the only chapel dedicated to the adolescent Jesus. We don’t often even consider that Jesus was an adolescent! Around this church, there were images of children martyrs from every place on earth. This a reminder that having faith and dying for one’s faith is not the preserve of adults. I found myself envying them for the conviction of their faith. Would that I could be that brave?
Bethlehem University is the only Catholic university in Palestine and was opened by the Lasallian Brothers in 1973. The student population is made up of 80% Muslim and 20% Christian students, the majority of whom are Orthodox. It also boasts a higher-than-average female population. The day we arrived was a holiday for the university so it was like a peaceful oasis, green and lush in the midst of the stark reminders of the dissent which we had driven through to get here. We met Palestinian students studying here who spoke of their aspirations. They feel that the world sees them as terrorists because they are Palestinian. They spoke about the restrictions imposed on them because of their nationality and spoke openly to us that not obeying could result in death.
The next stop was a visit to a local cave at Shepherd’s Field which commemorates the appearance of the angels to the shepherds on that first Christmas night (Lk 2:8–16). Although commercialism is now part and parcel of this location, there was a brief opportunity to sit and take in the landscape. We were there on a very hot day and, as I sat, I wondered what it would have looked like on that cold winter’s night when the angels appeared to the shepherds. Snow-covered perhaps, a clear, black sky undimmed by city light, just glistening with stars and one star in particular.
Our next stop for the day was at the much anticipated Church of the Nativity. We entered the church through the Door of Humility – a narrow short doorway designed to force people to be bowed humbly as they entered. I could boast that, as I am so short, I didn’t have to bow so much but that definitely didn’t mean that I was not humbled and in awe of where I was about to be. To my amazement, a Greek Orthodox celebration of the death of Jesus was taking place. Mournful music, chanting and incense rose in the air. I was a bit confused. Where was the birthplace of Jesus?
Our group was instructed to walk to one side of the church to a side passage and to descend to what opened up into a dimly lit grotto. The Grotto of the Holy Manger. It is a beautifully kept area, reverently attended to, and where our silence was insisted upon and easily given. Today, a silver star on the floor marks the spot where Christ was born. Each of us knelt and wanted to touch the spot, not just in some production line movement, but because we were moved to do so, in reverence and awe.
I found myself looking at some of the pilgrims as they knelt. Some were visibly moved, some weighed down by their backpacks, who could barely get up, but kneel they did. We all did. This was, and will always be, the spot where God became flesh for the whole of humanity for all time by being born into the human family as a small, fragile and defenceless baby. The implication of that event still causes me to be filled with amazement and wonder; wonder at our God who expressed the enormity of His love for us that He chose to be born so humbly.
We celebrated Mass in the Grotto of St Jerome that afternoon. This grotto is where Jerome spent a lot of time translating the Bible from Hebrew to Latin. I recalled that I had used St Jerome’s biblical commentary for many of my studies in Biblical Studies and Religious Education and now I had a little bit of a story to go with the name. The altar here is hewn out of stone and an intricate mosaic adorns the wall behind. We were a group of 39 pilgrims and we only just squeezed into this space and our singing during the mass attracted other visitors who were passing by the Grotto.
During our time in Bethlehem, we also had the privilege of hearing the stories of two people, one Jewish and one Palestinian, both of whom had lost a loved one as a result of the ongoing hostilities between these two nations. We met Gili and Leila, members of The Parents Circle – Families Forum (PCFF). This is a group that offers support to families both Jewish and Palestinian who have lost loved ones as a result of the ongoing conflict. Gili’s brother was in the army and died as a result of the fighting and Leila lost a young son as she wasn’t able to cross the Israeli roadblocks to get him urgent medical care.
After the trip through the walled city of Bethlehem, to the uplifting heights of the Holy Manger, to reflection in Shepherd’s Field, to the sorrowful story of these two people, this was certainly an experience of stark, sometimes confronting, contrasts. Violence and peace, love and hate, compassion and neglect, reverence and poverty, sorrow and joy, and God was everywhere.
