Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

!WARNING! –This post is obscenely long! It has taken me an entire day to type it. I have a reputation for writing novels and this beats all. If you don’t feel like tackling it all at once it’s broken up by day. No pics yet. I was trying to upload them but after facebook failed after working on the same set for 6 hours I got a little discouraged. I’ll try and get them up in the next couple days and maybe put some up here on a separate post. Also after finishing typing all this at around midnight. I didn’t have the motivation to go back and proof read it again. Sorry, good luck. God Bless!

Greetings and Blessings from Rome! So we did a lot more on our 10 day break than just going to the Holy Land but that is the part of the trip that is the most overwhelming, hopefully sometime soon I can come back and write about Istanbul and Cappadocia because they definitely deserve a post. Anyways straight to the main event: Israel! We left Istanbul Monday afternoon of Holy Week on Baltic Air. Unfortunately every route that Baltic flies goes through Riga. So we had an 8 hour layover in the capitol of Latvia. We ended up playing cards and eating the bread and Turkish delight we bought in Istanbul before we flew out. Our flight left Riga at Midnight and we touched down at 4am in Tel Aviv after not having slept at all despite having obscene amounts of leg room because we got the emergency exit row. When we got through passport control we quickly realized that something was wrong. The entire country’s bus and train system was not running that day because of Passover. Uh-oh. We ended up catching a sheruit to Hafia, and then in a true act of divine providence an Israeli family that had been in our sheruit was trying to get to Nazareth which was half way to Tiberius, where we were trying to go. The dad worked us out a deal, which ended up being pretty expensive but not as expensive as it would have been for us if we’d had to try and work it out on our own. Thus, after a little bit of excitement we ended up in Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee at 7am. We dropped our stuff at the hostel and then walked down to the shore which was about 3 blocks away and said Morning Prayer and read some passages out of the Bible. As we were standing there on the Sea of Galilee trying to decide what to do since there were no buses running that day I suggested we could just try walking up to Capernum. Tiberius is about on the in the middle of the west side of the Sea of Galilee and Capernum is on the North edge. It ended up working out pretty well because basically everything we wanted to see was between Tiberius and the North end of the Sea. We set out around 9 and it took a little over 2 hours to walk to the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Fishes. From there we walked a little ways further to the Church of the Primacy of Peter, built upon the rock we Jesus is said to have told Peter, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.” While we were sitting there I was flipping through my bible trying to find a specific verse and I came across the theme from TEC 111, “Cast out into the deep,” Luke 5:4 next to it was the note that my confirmation sponsor, Bill Gress had written on that TEC. As I was looking out over the sea I realized that this was the literal “deep.” That was my first taste of being left in awe by personally experiencing the actual setting of the bible, something that would be repeated many times on this trip. After that we hiked up the Mount of Beatitudes to the Church situated at the top. As we walked up the dirt path that ran between hayfields and what looked a lot like prairie grass, I couldn’t help but thinking that the grove of trees at the top which hid the church looked a lot like my Grandma and Grandpa Butel’s farm in eastern Kansas. It was at that moment that I realized why I have always loved Kansas, it looks like the Holy Land! I also remarked how my dad would love it there after we walked by a cut wheat field with big straw bales stacked in the middle of it. When we got to the top we found out that church didn’t open for about an hour and a half at 2:30pm. So we sat down on some big rocks underneath some really tall olive-like trees. It was kind of a neat experience reading the bible and napping in the place which the crowds gathered to listen to our Lord. The view of the Sea from the church was astonishing, it blew my mind to think about listening to the Lord preach in such a setting. After a bit of an adventure walking through a banana grove that turned into a field full of weeds with really big thorns that in hindsight I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to go through, we came back down to the road that ran along the sea and made our way on to Capernum. We had planned on trying to eat fish in Capernum for a late lunch but when we got there all we found was an Orthodox Church and some archeological ruins. Oh well! At that point we were so far along the sea that we decided to just keep walking till we got to the Jordan river where it enters at the north end. This turned out to be a considerable way but we eventually made it and climbed down to the water which was moving fairly fast under the bridge. We just sat there and enjoyed the fact that we were on the Jordon River, in which time David managed to fall into the river and drop his brievery in as well. Lol. Refreshed from our break down by the river we set off back for Tiberius. Again God was looking out for us and a taxi tracked us down as we were about a third of the way back. It was getting dark and we were starting to pay for hiking all day on no sleep and a no food (we hadn’t eaten since 8pm the night before in Riga) I wasn’t sure we were going to make it back all in one piece. When we got back to Tiberius we got our fish dinner and went down and did Evening Prayer on the sea side again.

Wednesday
The next morning we slept a little late to give our bodies a chance to recuperate from the previous day. We caught a bus around 9:30 for Nazareth. After getting lost initially and walking up to the top of the town we spotted the Basilica of the Annunciation down below us and made our way back down. Once we finally got there we only had about 30 min before we needed to catch the next bus. It was pretty rushed, especially since I felt like I could have sat in front of the cave of the Annunciation and prayed there all day. I mean that was the spot we God became man, where Mary uttered her fiat, “thy will be done,” and where her role as co-redeptorix of humanity began. After I re-consecrated myself to her will I went over to the Church of St. Joseph next door. The Church is built over the house and workshop of St. Joseph, while I was there I thought about how my dad has taught me how to work a lot like St. Joseph taught Jesus how to work. About 2pm we got to Mount Tabor. The bus stop was about a good 45 min walk from the city at the base of the mountain. We got to the top by about 4 which was pretty good considering about half way up I think all of us started paying for all the walking we’d done in the last two days. We spent about an hour in the church and then at 5 when they closed we found a nice spot on the west side of the slope to sit and watch the sunset. We said Evening Prayer as the sun was setting and then hustled down because it had cooled off a little bit on the top of the mountain and Jared, the Texan, hadn’t brought a jacket and was freezing. Ha. On the way down Jared starting jogging trying to warm himself up and then for some reason we were all jogging down Mount Tabor. It was a really effortless jog because it was a perfect slope and the pavement was really smooth. We did that about half of the way down the Mountain before our bodies began to remind us that we hadn’t eaten anything since a rather meager breakfast that morning. When we got to the bottom we stopped at a little grocery store and bought a couple packages of bread. In hindsight I doubt that that bread was very good but walking along that empty road with a few good friends on a beautiful evening it tasted wonderful after not having eaten all day. I remarked to Jared as we were walking along back to the bus stop that it might be the most beautiful evening that I had ever had the privilege to be alive for. The temperature could not have been more perfect, the stars were bright, there was a gentle early summer night breeze blowing across a field of cut hay into our faces and the next day we would be following Christ’s steps to Jerusalem. When I’d talked to my friend Jackie about her trip to the Holy Land I’d felt like Mount Tabor was somewhere I really wanted to go and again when we were in Cappadocia, the frescos of the Transfiguration kept catching my attention. Who knows but I think it must have been that God wanted me to experience the ultimate grandeur of His creation that night. It seemed that just as Christ had been transformed into His glorified body on that mountain so too God had transformed His creation that night into something more glorious than usual. When we got back to Tiberius that night we went down to the Sea to say Office of the Readings. It was one of those offices that is perfectly timed, the psalms was about going to Jerusalem and Mount Zion. As we were praying I’d seen a few guys hope a fence at the edge of the pier and I hadn’t touched the Sea of Galilee yet so I hoped the fence too and the other three guys followed me. We worked our way down the big rocks and sat right on the edge of the sea. The moon was full, the water was smooth and we just sat around and talked till we decided that maybe we should get some sleep because we were going to have a full couple of days.

Holy Thursday
The next morning we woke up a little late again and caught the bus to Jerusalem around 9. The traffic was so bad that it took about an extra hour and we ended up getting into the Old City around 1pm. After getting situated we went a processed with the Franciscans from Casa Nova, their main house, to the Cenacle, the room of the Last Supper. I got really lucky and just slipped in the back door. The service was really nice and in several different languages. I was just following along in the book that a little old Italian nun was sharing with me when it hit me, this is the very room on the very day when Christ said, “This is my body…This is my blood.” Whoa! It took me like the rest of the day to recover, it just blew me away. On the way to mass at Ecce Homo Convent we stopped at Dormition Abbey the place where Mary is said to have lived with John after the Crucifixion. The other big highlight of the night was processing with the Franciscans to the Basilica of the Agony in the Garden. Again I got extremely lucky and was able to sneak into the church behind the Franciscans even though there were already people standing outside the church. It was absolutely packed inside but as a few people got tired of being so packed and left I was able to work my way over into the back corner and ended up climbing on top of a confessional, which I think had to be the best seat in the house. After the service we were able to go up and venerate the bare rock in front of the altar where Christ fell down and prayed in the garden. After the service we went and prayed in the olive grove next to the church which contained some of the largest olive trees I’ve ever seen. We found out later that scientist have taken measurements and determined that some of the trees are over 3300 years old! We were standing there praying under the same trees that Christ prayed under on that night so long ago! As I was leaving I ran into a girl we later named Pennsylvania (her home state) who studied at Hebrew University. We’d met her and her friends at our hostel in Tiberius, and Jared would run into her again on Staurday.

Good Friday
The next morning Joe and I woke up really early so we could get a good spot in line for Good Friday service at 6:30am at the Holy Sepulchre. I know this is probably starting to be a theme but again we got incredibly lucky and managed to work our way up to Calvary. For the entire service of the Lord’s Passion I was 15 feet or so from the very rock of Calvary. That was another one of those I really can’t believe this is where I actually am. It was strange how we seemed to keep running into the same pilgrims over those three days. As I was getting smashed up to Calvary that morning a priest to my right, turned and asked if I was actually from Kansas. That kind of threw me until I realized I had my Kansas 4-H Youth Council jacket on, it turns out he was from Missouri. After the service I managed to get through the line to go into the Sepulchre before the opened the doors of the church to the masses crammed outside. I’m still not sure I’ve really absorbed that part of the trip, that I venerated the tomb of Christ on Good Friday, wow. After we escaped out of the church through the masses of humanity that were rushing in, we made our way back to the Austrian Hospice where we were staying and met up with David. We made our way over to the First Station of the Cross which was close as the Hospice was on the Third Station. We started the Stations behind the Franciscans but due to the masses trying to go down the Via Dolorosa we quickly lost sight of them and then I lost the other two guys as well. I ended up making it through all the stations except those in the actual church despite the crowds. After that I’d had about enough of being shoved and crushed and crowded so I just made my way back to the Hospice and found a nice spot under a palm tree with my bible, breivary, and journal. It was good to just take some time do some praying and thinking. I took a little bit of a nap that afternoon and then my way to Ecce Homo for a penance service below the church in the Lithostrotos, the straight pavement where Christ was crowned with thorns and held before being sentenced. It was a nice quiet prayerful place that wasn’t crowded at all, a real gem in Jerusalem Holy Week services.

Holy Saturday
The next morning Joe, David and I woke up early again (like 4am) and made our way to the New Gate to try and get through security for the Easter Vigil Mass in the Holy Sepulchre which was at 6:30am. It looked a little doubtful for a while because there was some miscommunication amongst the Israeli police force which seemed to be comprised of basically the entire Israeli military, there were so many soldiers and officers around armed to the teeth. We ended up getting past the initial gate and as we were waiting for an officer to take us to the next checkpoint a Franciscan tapped us on the shoulder and told us to go follow this other brother who ended up taking us through the back of the Franciscan monastery, Casa Nova, were after waiting for a while we were escorted to the church by a Arab-Christian officer. After getting basically smuggled in, we were three of only 150 people who managed to get in and attend the Easter Vigil. Not only we did we get in but we all had a view of the altar which was set up directly in front of the opening of the tomb. I got separated from David and Joe and ended up standing right on the front corner of the tomb within 10 feet of the altar. I was right behind the row of priests that were concelebrating and who would end up in front of me but the priest from Missouri. I was able to look over his shoulder and follow along in the book he was sharing with another priest. It was a little beyond my meager Latin skills but I stilled managed to have a fairly good idea of what was going on and what the readings were about. After I received communion I knelt down and placed my hand on the tomb, and it was then that I was close as I would get to understanding what was actually happening. It was beyond anything my humble grasp of English could hope to describe. He is Risen! I was there and I have known it firsthand. What an amazing faith we have been given, what a wonderful Redeemer! After the service we hung around praying expecting to get thrown out any moment because of the Orthodox celebration of the Holy Fire which was going to happen at 2pm. The police never did though and when the Orthodox started rushing in around 11 we picked out our spot on a bench by the Latin chapel. We ended up choosing really well, as it got more crowded and then packed we were able to stand up so that we could still see and the stone wall behind us helped keep us cool as the church got hotter and hotter from all the people that had jammed in. The Holy Fire which first appeared in the 800’s is the longest reoccurring Christian miracle. The Patriarch enters the tomb and after saying a prayer a flame brought down from heaven by the angel Gabriel rises from the tomb which the Patriarch lights his candle off of and then brings out to the faithful waiting outside. Understandably the Orthodox get a little excited about this, and do everything in their power to get inside and witness it. This leads to what amounts to mass pandemonium inside the Holy Sepulchre. When the fire came out of the tomb it reminded me of when we burn off wheat stubble after harvest. Everyone had these massive, torch-like bundle of candles which resulted in a wall of fire moving towards us at a frightening speed. I don’t know how they don’t burn the whole church down and the smoke that filled the place was incredible. I think I inhaled more secondhand smoke that day than I have in my whole life. With no small help from Providence we survived that experience. In the great irony of the entire trip, the one Orthodox, Jared, didn’t manage to get inside the church because he got stuck in security while the three Catholics had a front row view. Poor kid. That afternoon I walked up to the Mount of Olives because I had only seen the Basilica of the Agony on Thursday night, and I also figured it would be less crowded up than the Old City. I ended up at the Dominus Flevit Chapel where Christ is said to have wept for the fate of Jerusalem. And I’ve got to say if I were trying to choose a place to weep for Jerusalem I don’t think a better spot could be found. It commands an amazing view of the Old City. I sat there on the side of the Mount of Olives under a tree and read the readings from mass that morning that I hadn’t really understood in the Latin. While I was sitting reading I saw a pilgrim who I’d ran into the night before at the penance service at Ecce Homo. I don’t have any idea what his name was but he was a really friendly old guy, and I hope he was blessed in the rest of his travels. When they closed at 5 I ran into Joe who was wondering around up on the Mount too. We wandered over to the Mosque of the Ascension (Christ is a prophet in Islam, so the place is holy for them too, I guess) and saw the footprint that Christ was supposed to have left in the rock as he ascended from earth. By that time most all the holy sites on the mountain were closing down so we worked our way down into the city and split up to hunt for souvenirs. After I’d spent all the shekles I had left I went back to the Hospice and did some more reading under the same tree, fell asleep and woke up in time to see Jared come back in. We sat and had a really good conversation about our faith, life, vocations, and everything we’d been experiencing. After a while we were joined by David and Joe and the four of us went out for our Easter feast at the Pizzeria across the street. Jared and I enjoyed the first meat we’d eaten since the beginning of Lent and I think Joe and David just enjoyed eating something other than the bread and water that we’d been eating most all of Holy Week. We bought some ice cream and went up to the roof terrace of the hospice, and visited about the trip as we celebrated.

Easter Sunday
Sunday morning we went to Easter morning mass at Ecce Homo because it was the only service that was early enough that we could go and still make it for our flight. So we celebrated Easter morning Mass on the roof of Ecce Homo as the sun rose over Jerusalem. It may have been my imagination but it seemed as if the domes of the Holy Sepulchre shone with a different brilliance that morning, the whole city had a different feel as if it knew He has risen too. We ran into the priest from Missouri one last time at mass (he was concelebrating again. Ha). His name was Fr. Matthew and it turned out he was a Jesuit studying at the Biblicium in Jerusalem and was good friends with our very own Fr. Brown, who is also a Jesuit and one of our chaplains on the Rome campus. After mass we went and had our first breakfast at the hostel together(every other morning we’d missed the free breakfast because we at the Holy Sepulchre). It felt strange leaving for Tel Aviv to fly out after only three days in Jerusalem. I hope and pray that it’s God’s will that someday I may be fortunate enough to behold the blessed city again.

Well folks, if you’re not sick of my writing by now something is probably wrong with you and you should go get that checked out. Lol. I hope if you persevered and read this whole thing that you receive some benefit or blessing. I feel a little bit like the gospel writer who finished by saying that there were many more things Christ did but if they were all written down the whole world wouldn’t be large enough to contain all the books to be written. These were the big details but my mind is full of so many more thoughts about the whole trip (after all this was only the half in Israel) mainly ideas I’ve taken away from it and things I’ve learned about myself and life. If you care to hear any of that, I’m not sure if I can put any of it into words but catch me when I get back to the states and we can have a chat and I’ll give it a try. God Bless, and remember that blessed are we who have not seen and yet believe! Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

"I give thanks to my God at every remembrance of you,praying always with joy in my every prayer for all of you,because of your partnership for the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right that I should think this way about all of you, because I hold you in my heart, you who are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God." -Philippians 1:3-ll

As I was reading my TEC bible in Jerusalem on Good Friday I saw this verse highlighted and it summarized my sentiment perfectly. All of you back home were on my mind and in my prayers during Holy Week. I promise that sometime this week I will get a detailed blog entry up about our trip through Turkey and the Holy Land. God Bless and may you be filled with joy in the risen Christ this Easter season!

Tony