Church of All the Saints of the Holy Land and Russia

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This beautiful church in Ein Kerem is called the Church of All the Saints of the Holy Land and Russia.
(You can click two separate times to enlarge any of the pictures.)

And today, on the Byzantine liturgical calendar, it is Sunday of All Saints.

The Divine Liturgy for the Feast of All Saints of the Holy Land took place this morning at the church of the same name within the Gorny Convent.

 Russians built the convent in 1871 but the big church was "on hold" for over a century.
Just a few years ago it was finally finished, complete with golden domes.
It looks out over my beloved Jerusalem Hills.

Read more about this Sunday at the Greek Orthodox website, including this nice summary:

In this celebration, then, we the pious reverently honour and call blessed all the Righteous, the Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Shepherds, Teachers, and Holy Monastics, both men and women alike, known and unknown, who have been added to the choirs of the Saints and shall be added, from the time of Adam until the end of the world, who have been perfected in piety and have glorified God by their holy lives. All these, as well as the orders of the Angels, and especially our most holy Lady and Queen, the Ever-virgin Theotokos Mary, do we honour today, setting their life before us as an example of virtue, and entreating them to intercede in our behalf with God, Whose grace and boundless mercy be with us all. Amen.

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More pictures of the Russian Orthodox nuns and the several churches at the Gorny Convent in my earlier posts.
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And speaking of Russian Orthodox nuns, good Sister Dr. Vassa has started sharing whatever insights come to her during her morning reflections on how to make improvements in her and our spiritual life and life in general.  Very helpful, even for me, a non-Christian!
Just go to https://www.facebook.com/ and type in Vassa Larin.
Her posts are public and you do not need to have a Facebook account to see them.

UPDATE June 9: The Moscow Patriarchate just published their photos from the feast day at the church in Gorny Convent, with the arrival of an icon from Mt. Athos. 
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday and to the bloggers' meme for churches around the world, inSPIRED Sunday.)
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The Ladder of Divine Ascent

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An Orthodox priest filling the oil lamps above the tomb at the Holy Sepulchre.

 A brave Benedictine nun positioned a ladder on the stairs leading down to the crypt and climbed up to extinguish the candle at one of the stations of the cross.
 At the Abbey of St. Mary of the Resurrection, Abu Ghosh.

A brave nun friend on chapel-cleaning day.
Chapel at the tomb of St. Elisabeth.
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Why am I posting pictures of monastics on tall ladders?
Because  today is the Sunday of  John of the Ladder!
St. John Climacus wrote the guide for his fellow monks, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
He lived not far from here, at Santa Katarina monastery in Sinai and in desert caves in the 7th century.

I have been learning about him at Sr. Dr. Vassa's short video.
In it Sr. Vassa also talks about how you don't have to be a monastic to get into the habit of doing a little bit of spiritual reading, lectio divina, every day,  just for a few minutes.

The 12th C icon for The Ladder of Divine Ascent, this one from St. Catherine's Monastery.

You can sample some sections of the book here.
Or an outline of the steps of the ladder.
More about St. John Climacus.
An easy walk-through of the icon is at this nice icons blog.
Also at Wikipedia. 
But the most fun way is to see the Coffee with Sr. Vassa episode. Only ten minutes.
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Coffee with Sr. Vassa and the Magi

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Today was Epiphany.
Among other things, it celebrates the arrival of the three Wise Men to the cave in Bethlehem.
And tonight and tomorrow is Christmas day for those Orthodox Christians who use the Old Calendar, as well as for Coptic, Syrian, and Ethiopian Christians.

So tonight I thought it would be fun and enlightening to watch this short video in which those Magi are introduced in a whole new light by a young nun who is herself full of light.
Born in New York state, Sr. Vassa is a nun of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
Dr. Sr. Vassa teaches at the University of Vienna, this after many years in a monastery in France and two years in Jerusalem(!).

She is making a series of 10-minute Coffee with Sr. Vassa episodes and 2-minute Coffee Breaks, to be found on YouTube. 
Each is full of good teaching and a life lesson, presented in Sr. Vassa's inimitable style of humor and wisdom, with some music too. 
There is something in each reflection for everyone, even me, a nice Jewish girl.  :)

You can join the zillions and follow Coffee with Sr. Vassa on Facebook or subscribe on YouTube.
Visit the Coffee with Sister Vassa Official Website, it has everything you need to know about this special nun.
 
Yalla, have fun!  Let me know what you think. 

And merry Christmas to Sr. Vassa!
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(Z is for zillions, linking to ABC Wednesday meme.)
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Star of wonder

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Whatever you are celebrating tonight -- the conclusion of Christmastide, the arrival of the Magi, Epiphany, Theophany, the Feast of Lights, or  the blessing of having a warm cozy house -- may a star of wonder guide you.
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My vintage posts about Epiphany  in Abu Ghosh and Jerusalem are here.
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Feast of the Holy Innocents & an angelic violinist

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To flee Herod's wrath and escape the king's slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem, Joseph fled with his new little family southward to Egypt.
Caravaggio's painting Rest on the Flight into Egypt, c. 1597, is a favorite of mine.

An angel playing violin for the baby, Joseph holding the notes -- how did the artist dream up such a scene?!
Click a few times to see the big picture.

Historically, this massacre may or may not have happened.
But we do know that Herod never hesitated to kill,  even his own family members.

More about the story, and another old painting, in my earlier post. 
More about the Caravaggio painting at Wikipedia.
Wiki explains the Feast of the Holy Innocents here.
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St. John Paul II's first feast day

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On St. John Paul II's first feast day (today, Oct. 22), we remember his visit to Israel in the year 2000.

The historic message in the note the Pope placed in the Western Wall  (now enshrined at Yad Vashem).

Photo by Grzegorz Galazka

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL (Anti-Defamation League)  National Director and a Holocaust survivor from Poland, wrote this about the recently-canonized Polish pope:

The canonization of Pope John XXIII, the father of Vatican II, and Pope John Paul II, who denounced anti-Semitism as “sin against God and humanity” and who was the first pope to visit the Great Synagogue of Rome since the time of Peter, formalizes and celebrates the courageous leadership of these two holy men who were determined to set the church on the right path toward better relations with other faiths.

For us in the Jewish community, Popes John Paul II and John XXIII have already been saints for a long time.  

They are towering men whose visionary leadership and groundbreaking reforms transformed Jewish-Catholic relations and reversed two thousand painful years of church-based anti-Semitism.

Click on the photo to read what John Paul was feeling about the Holy Land as he stood on Mt. Nebo (in Jordan) and gazed at the promised land, as did Moses from the same mountain.
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Good reading:
Israel welcomes visit by Pope John Paul II  (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
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Visit to Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority: A Pilgrimage of Prayer, Hope, and Reconciliation  (ADL)
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Moses, John Paul, and Benedict on Mt. Nebo  (this blog)
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First feast day today for St. John XXIII

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Today is the first-ever Catholic feast day for newly-canonized Pope St. John XXIII.

He was pope from 1958 to 1963, and Israeli flags were lowered to half mast when he died.
Last year, for the 50th anniversary of his death, Jerusalem hosted a wonderful conference which brought together top scholars and high-ranking clergy from Israel and the world.
You can enlarge the photos 2x and perhaps you will recognize the names and faces of some of the speakers.

International Conference: Honoring the memory of Pope John XXIII
The Shoah, the Jewish People & the State of Israel

Day long conference covering topics such as: Roncalli and the Shoah, Roncalli and the Establishment of the State of Israel, John XXIII, Vatican II and Nostra Aetate, and The Legacy of John XXIII for Catholic-Jewish Relations – Europe & the World

See the program of the seminar here, including a video of President Peres' thoughts on "The Good Pope," as Roncalli was popularly known.

 

The large audience got to see the hour-long prize-winning Israeli film "I Am Joseph, Your Brother."

 (Read more about the time the Pope first spoke that  Biblical verse to his Jewish guests.)

The movie's website begins

During the 1960s, Pope John XXIII met with a delegation of Jews and said, "I am Joseph Your Brother" marking the beginning of a new relationship between Jews and Catholics. Inspired by the visit of Pope John Paul II to Israel in 2000, I am Joseph, Your Brother assesses and reflects on the changes that have occurred in the often difficult and turbulent relationship that has existed for centuries between Jews and Christians, Judaism and Catholicism, and more recently, between the State of Israel and the Vatican.

Some of the pearls I remember well from that day:

When the Church assigned Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli to several Eastern European countries during World War II,  he was able to save up to 100,000 Jews from the hands of the Nazis, mostly through what some call "Operation Baptism."

One speaker predicted that when history gets straightened out, Israel may someday have streets named for Pope John XXIII and he will finally be included in Yad Vashem's Righteous of the Nations.

On June 3,  the official day of his death, our Knessent last year  held a special session on Roncalli.

A woods has been named for him in the Galilee, near Mt. Precipice.

It was this pope who convened the Second Vatican Council from which came Nostra Aetate. 
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I must say, in the last decades Catholic-Jewish relations have come a long way, in both directions.
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The Saint of the Day website gives these hopeful last words from Saint John XXIII:

On his deathbed he said: “It is not that the gospel has changed; it is that we have begun to understand it better. Those who have lived as long as I have…were enabled to compare different cultures and traditions, and know that the moment has come to discern the signs of the times, to seize the opportunity and to look far ahead.” 

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What would John the Baptist say?

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Some pictures for John the Baptist on his birthday! 

Enlarge the photo above and see John baptizing Jesus in the River Jordan.

The gift shop at Kasr il Yahud, near Jericho, is full of souvenirs for pilgrims.

Sometimes I wonder how John would react if he could see the modern version of his desert  baptismal site,  complete with tourist buses,  Israeli army patrols,

refrigerated trucks bringing ice cream to the kiosk,

and groups of young North Americans being dunked by their pastor,
while being photographed and filmed,

to the accompaniment of guitars and songs.
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What do you think?
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(More blog pictures of Kasr al Yahud here.)
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Monastery of St. Gerasimus

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 H is for heresy, hesychasm, and hermit.
Today is the feast day of St. Gerasimus.

Since my visit to the old old monastery of Gerasimus near Jericho two years ago I have posted much about the beautiful Greek Orthodox  place in the desert.
In honor of his feast day, here are some more photos.

Saint Gerasimus and the animals.

The church.

I think it is the Father Abbot supervising a tree pruning.

 The mosaic workshop.

Another of the many desert hermit monks who practiced the hesychastic asceticism.

A repaired crack in the church wall, result of an earthquake.
The Jordan Valley is part of the Great Rift Valley, prone to quakes. 

Skulls and bones of monks down through the ages.

A modern cafe-oasis for thirsty pilgrims and tourists who like to visit this monastery.

The surrounding desert.
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(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday and  ABC Wednesday.)
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A feast day in Jerusalem

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A blessed Solemnity of Corpus Christi to the Catholic friends!
There was a Pontifical Mass at the Holy Sepulchre today.

My Ministry of Tourism calendar says
"This feast is celebrated in the Latin Church to solemnly commemorate the institution of the Holy Eucharist."

But  Father James Gardiner  explains in a much simpler and more personally applicable way  about Corpus Christi.  In this video he makes some really good points, and in less than two minutes!

His monastery--and this is the amazing part (to me, at least)--is the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America, begun in 1898.
The architect, Aristide Leonori (1856-1928), visited the Holy Land and took accurate measurements and photographs of the holy sites that were to be reproduced.

So replicas of Jerusalem's shrines are now in Washington, D.C.! 
Take a look at the pictures and how all this was conceived and built at the Holy Land Franciscans' website.
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P.S.  My photo of the beautiful chalices and  the Communion elements was taken at the Dormition Abbey on Mt. Zion before Mass began, on August 15, 2012, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.
Click to enlarge. Even the reflections are beautiful. 
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Update:  I was surprised to learn just now that the Feast of Corpus Christi entered the Church thanks to a vision that a mystical nun had at age 16, in Belgium, in the early 13th century.
Yes, a woman!  St. Juliana.
Her story, as told by Pope Emeritus Benedict, is fascinating.
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UPDATE, June1:  The Franciscan have just posted a video from the Holy Sepulchre Mass.
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Joseph to Egypt, Herod to Israel Museum

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St. Joseph warned by the angel

by Dutch painter Govaert Flinck

1658.  Oil on canvas

Israel Museum exhibit "Divine Messengers: Angels in Art"

December 27-28-29 are the days on which the various Western and Eastern churches mark the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

Wikipedia explains the Flight into Egypt:

When the Magi came in search of Jesus, they go to Herod the Great in Jerusalem and ask where to find the newborn "King of the Jews". Herod becomes paranoid that the child will threaten his throne, and seeks to kill him. Herod initiates the Massacre of the Innocents in hopes of killing the child.

But an angel appears to Joseph and warns Joseph to take Jesus and his mother into Egypt.
Egypt was a logical place to find refuge, as it was outside the dominions of King Herod, but both Egypt and Palestine were part of the Roman Empire, making travel between them easy and relatively safe.

The passage from Matthew 2:

When [the Magi] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. 

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. 

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

Historically, this massacre may or may not have happened.
But we know that Herod never hesitated to kill,  even his own family. 

Israel Museum is currently creating an outstanding exhibition called  Herod the Great: The King's Final Journey, due to open February 12.
See the short video about its construction.
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On the Feast of Stephen . . .

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Today is St. Stephen's Day.
It is even a legal holiday in many countries.

Stephen was the first Christian martyr, the Protomartyr.
In the year 34 or 35 he was stoned to death, probably at the Damascus Gate.
Near the gate, outside of the Old City,  a church was built in the 5th century to house his relics.
The Dominican Fathers built a new church over the remains of the ancient one in 1900.

The Basilica of St. Stephen or Basilique Saint-Étienne is very beautiful.

The paintings are of John the Baptist, Jesus, and Stephen.

The saints hold the scrolls of their inspired sayings.

Inside the peaceful walled compound of the church  is also the monastery and the famous École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem (EBAF).

You can enlarge the photo and read the sign about them.

The Ecole's website has a nice video tour of the whole place. 

There are also four earlier posts about this place, this special place which I always think of on December 26, St. Stephen's Day.
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Mazal tov--a new Pope!

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Mazal tov -- congratulations!
A new Pope for the Coptic Orthodox Christians was chosen  yesterday in Egypt.
H.G. Bishop Tawadros' picture can be seen here.
He will soon become the spiritual leader of the Middle East’s largest Christian community, estimated at around 10 percent of  Egypt's population of 83 million.

And here is the video clip of the curious manner in which the pope is picked, by a blindfolded boy drawing out one of three names of the final candidates  written on a ball.

 This is a good opportunity to show you the Coptic liturgy I just by chance wandered into last August 22, which was St. Mary's Fast, down in the Church of Mary in Jerusalem.

Some 2,500 Copts live in Israel.

 Archbishop Dr. Anba Abraham is the Coptic Orthodox Metropolitan Archbishop of Jerusalem and the Near East.
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UPDATE: Archbishop Abraham died on November 25, 2015.  May his memory be a blessing.
UPDATE March 2016: Anba Antonius, the new Archbishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and the Near East. Antonius, who was appointed on February 27 in Cairo as the successor of the deceased Anba Abraham, is the twenty-second metropolitan archbishop of the city.   (see here about his welcome to Jerusalem)
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See more here: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/post-biblical-period/what-is-coptic-and-who-were-the-copts-in-ancient-egypt/ 
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Feast at the Church of the Transfiguration

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The festive Mass for the Feast of the Transfiguration was broadcast live as streaming video.

Hundreds ascended to the top of Mount Tabor, believed to be the place of Jesus' transfiguration, and packed the beautiful Franciscan basilica.

Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custodian of the Holy Land, and many other priests conducted Mass in the upper part of the church.
Enlarge the first photo to appreciate the splendid golden mosaic.


Cameras of the Franciscan Media Center were grinding away (including one on a huge long boom).

The view of the Jezreel Valley from the top of Mt. Tabor, the lone rounded mountain in the region, was splendid.
Someone really picked a good place for the transfiguration.
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UPDATE: Archbishop Pizzaballa is no longer the Custos of the Holy Land.  He is now the Apostolic Administrator of Jerusalem.

For more about Mt. Tabor and the Transfiguration please see my posts here.

(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday.)
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