On the Mount of Olives

The Mount of Olives is a place overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem which has sites of importance both the Jews and for Christians. According to the Book of Zechariah, this is where God will start to redeem the dead when the Messiah returns on Judgment Day. So the Jews prefer to be buried here so as to have a good place in line! There are some 150,000 tombs on these slopes. This is the world’s oldest continually used cemetery. Good to know that Zechariah himself, together with two other prophets Haggai and Malachi, are buried here in an underground burial ground as one is coming down the hill.

Our pilgrimage began on the top of the hill by visiting from the outside (to enter we had to pay 5 NIS … and there is not much to see, apart from a large footprint!). What is interesting to this place is that it functions both as a mosque and a church (at least, once a year mass is celebrated here). One brief reflection that I made here was the invitation that the priest makes during Mass in the dialogue with the people just before the preface: Sursum Corda (“Lift up your hearts”), to which we answer: “We lift them up to the Lord”. The feast of the Ascension of the Lord is an invitation to lift continually our thoughts and our hearts to the Lord. St Paul: “Set your minds on things that are above” (Col 3,2). Pope Benedict XVI, last Wednesday, September 26, made this beautiful reflection: “Sursum corda, let us lift up our hearts beyond the entanglement of our concerns, our desires, our anxieties and our distractions. Our heart, the most intimate place within us, should open docilely to the Word of God and be recollected in the prayer of the Church, and thereby receive its orientation toward God from the very words that we hear and say. The gaze of the heart must be directed to the Lord, who abides among us: it is a fundamental disposition.”

Then we (I was with two Franciscan Friars who are also on a Sabbatical) went to the Church where tradition has it that Jesus taught the Our Father to his disciples. This Church is annexed to a Carmelite Monastery of Nuns. It’s a serene place. I loved listening to the Our Father being sung in the different languages. The Our Father is reproduced here in 160 languages on tiled panels. The Maltese version is one of the first to be included and is written in old Maltese script.  My reflection here was around the request made one disciple to the Lord after experiencing Jesus praying: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11,1). This was one of my prayers of Mt Tabor during my retreat and I have renewed my prayer here in this special place. How I wish I could learn from Jesus to enter and live in and live by this intimate relationship with the Father! Lord, teach me to pray!

After visiting the Tombs of the Prophets, we went to the Church of Dominus Flevit (The Lord wept) recalling the moment when Jesus wept over Jerusalem for its hard heart (Luke 19,41 [full text: 19,37-44]). Apart from the view of the Old City from within the Church, what is interesting here is the structure of the Church: it is in the form of a tear. Amazing! God’s love for us … God’s thirst for the salvation of each person! On the altar of this church there is a beautiful mosaic depicting a hen on its chicks and the words from the Gospel of Matthew: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (23,37). Am I making God “weep” for my unresponsiveness to his thirst for me?

Then, going down the hill (and it is a very steep hill … I thank the Lord we made to decision to walk down the hill and not up!), we found the Russian Church of Mary Magdalene open. This is a beautiful Eastern Church dedicated to Mary Magdalene. That which really stands out in this Church is the feature of the seven golden onion domes. What I found interesting in this Church is that apart from icons, there were also some paintings. From the Dominus Flevit to this Church, commemorating this wonderful woman Mary Magdalene who loved Jesus so much, that she never left him once she found him! He is for her, the “beloved”, “her hope”, as the Church have her sing in the Victimae Paschalis, the sequence that we sing on Easter Day before the Gospel. Lord, that I may be like Mary, never to separate myself from you.

Finally, we went to that which is known as the Church of the Nations (it gets this name because it was financed by 12 countries back in the 1920’s). It is also called the Church of the Agony. The architect of this Church is the same one who designed the Church on Mt Tabor. There, the main feature is light, glory. Here, the main feature is gloom, sadness to reflect the sentiment of Jesus when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane immediately before his passion: “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (Luke 22,44). The sins of all humanity and the unresponsiveness of some are weighing upon the Lord Jesus. Here, Jesus becomes one with all the suffering of humanity, especially with humanity which struggles with acknowledging and doing God’s will: “not my will, but your will be done” (Luke 19,42). Lord, help me always to do your will, always and in every circumstance, whatever it takes!

The hen on its brood -- the image used by Jesus in Matthew's Gospel

The Mosaic on the Apse of the Church of the Agony

The Our Father in Maltese