St Peter in Gallicantu and a Night at the Holy Sepulcher

St Peter in Gallicantu

On Friday morning, between lectures, I went to visit the Church of St Peter in Gallicantu which is to be found on the slopes of Mt Zion. This is believed to have been the site of the house of the high priest Caiaphas where Jesus was taken (Mark 14,53) following his arrest in Gethsemane. Jesus would have been made to walk from beneath the Mt of Olives round the outer edge of the South-looking walls of the city onto this place on Mt Zion. There are still some stairs which come up the hill which Jesus would have trodden on his way to the House of Caiaphas. 

Stairs up from the Kidron Valley to the Gallicantu Church
Jesus was made to go up these stairs to reach
the House of Caiaphas, the High Priest

Close to the house there is also a dungeon-like pit where Jesus would have been kept for the night. Next to this pit, some caves were found which owing to their contiguity to the pit and the fact that many iron bars were found attached to the walls, led to the suggestion that here we have the public jail where John and Peter might have been kept and scourged for preaching in the name of Jesus (see Acts 4,1-22; 5,17-42). There is also a fourth-century tradition (not found in the Gospels) which says that Jesus was also scourged here by the Jews (not only by Pilate). According to the Gospels, Peter would have followed Jesus in coming here. So this is the place where Peter denied knowing Jesus three times until the cock crew three times (Gallicantu means ‘the crowing of the cock’). See Mark 14,66-72.

So this place invites us to contemplate the Suffering Servant of the Lord. One of the marble plaques here recalls Psalm 88: “My soul is full of troubles … I am reckoned among those who go down to the Pit … Your wrath lies heavy upon me … You have cause my companions to shun me … I am shut in so that I cannot escape … I, o Lord, cry to you”.  It is also an invitation to reflect on how much we cannot rely on ourselves: Peter relied on himself and failed. But we are also called to recall Jesus’ look full of mercy and forgiveness: “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, before the cock crows today, you will have denied me three times” (Luke 22,26). May I also be touched by the full meaning of this merciful look which you also give me, o my Saviour!

A Mosaic in the Church of St Peter in Gallicantu
Jesus looking at Peter

The Assumptionists and the Oblates of the Assumption, who are responsible for this place, have done a great work to help people make a spiritual experience as they tour around the site. In the crypt, there is also the explicit invitation for one to approach the Sacrament of Reconciliation and receive God’s forgiveness.

A Night at the Holy Sepulcher

The night between Friday and Saturday was extremely special for me. Today, October 20, would have been my dearest mother’s 77 birthday. So I decided to spend the night closed within the Holy Sepulcher for a night of prayer and vigilance. We were eight (4 Orthodox nuns, 3 Polish lay persons, and myself) in all, apart from those who usually live within the precincts of the building.

How blessed is this place! It is here that, ultimately, Jesus showed that he loved his own to the end (see John 13,1). This place knows the utter humiliation that God as man decided to go through for our salvation. This is where the blood of God made man washed the ground. It is here that life won over death and sin once and for all. As we sing during the vigil on Easter Saturday: O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem! (O happy fault, that merited such and so great a Redeemer!) As St Paul says: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5,21). “I bow my knees before the Father … that you may have power … to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3,19). This is God’s infinite, gratuitous love for us.

“Heavenly Father, I love You, I praise You, and I worship You. I thank You for sending Your Son Jesus who won victory over sin and death for my salvation. I thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit who empowers me, guides me, and leads me into fullness of life. I thank you for Mary, my Heavenly Mother, who intercedes with the holy angels and saints for me.

“Lord Jesus Christ, I place myself at the foot of Your cross and ask You to cover me with Your Precious Blood which pours forth from Your Most Sacred Heart and Your Most Holy Wounds. Cleanse me, my Jesus, in the living water that flows from Your Heart. I ask You to surround me, Lord Jesus, with Your Holy Light” (the beginning of a prayer written by Fr Robert DeBrandis SSJ which I found to be quite close to my prayer).

I was at the Basilica a few minutes before 7.00 pm when the closure of the Basilica takes place. We were to stay in the area of the Holy Sepulcher until 11.00 pm and then go on the Golgotha for the rest of the time, until 4.00 am when the Basilica opens again for the faithful. I stayed “opposite the sepulcher” (see Matt 27,61) praying my Evening Prayer and the Rosary. It was very meaningful to pray here the Sorrowful and the Glorious Mysteries, which helped me contemplate what St Paul says: “he loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2,20).

The Holy Sepulcher from the outside

I had two long moments when I was able to enter alone inside the tomb of Our Lord Jesus Christ. What a great marvelous gift, to be there where Jesus assumed totally our humanity by entering our death, where he descended into hell, as we say in the Apostles’ Creed, meaning where Jesus reached out to bound humanity to release it and give it the possibility of life everlasting. In this great mystery, Jesus assumes, saves and divinizes us! I prayed that the Lord may touch those areas of my life which are still bound and give me full freedom to live truly and completely as a son of the Father. I did this same prayer for all whom I know and serve.

The Tomb of Jesus

At 11.45 pm I prayed the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer with the Franciscan Friars. One may ask: morning prayer at midnight?! Well here in the Holy Land there is what is called the “status quo”: history in those sanctuaries, shared with other Christian denominations, stopped on February 8, 1852, when an official declaration was signed. This agreement determines the subjects of ownership of the holy places, and more specifically, the spaces inside the sanctuaries. It also extends to the times and durations of functions, movements, the routes taken and how they are implemented, whether by singing or by reading. Any change requires the consent of all the communities (Catholic, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, and Syrian).

The Golgotha

The site where the Cross of the Redeemer stood

Then I moved to the Golgotha where I continued to pray and reflect on the mystery of our salvation. Here I had a beautiful moment when I could pray the Rosary with the Polish lay persons very close to the place where the cross of Christ stood: I was saying one part in Latin and the others in Polish.

The Statue of Our Lady of Sorrows on the Golgotha

Silence was dominant between 7.00 pm and 11.00 pm, when the Greek Orthodox began preparing for their Divine Liturgy in the Katholikon and the Holy Sepulcher. This ended at 2.00 am when silence fell again on the holy space for it to be broken again by the (loud) peeling of bells at 3.00 am and the Divine Liturgy of the Armenians.