A darkness psalm

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For PsalmChallenge, hosted by Robert Geiss in Athens, here is the dark Psalm 88.

1. A song. A psalm of the Korachites. For the leader. On mahalat le’annot.  A maskil  of Heman the Ezrahite.

2. O LORD, God of my deliverance, daily I cry out at night in front of You.

3. Let my prayer come before Your face; incline Your ear to my cry.

4. For my soul is sated with evils; my life has arrived at the brink of Sheol.

5. I am reckoned with those who go down into the Pit; I am become like a man without strength,

6. loosed among the dead, like slain corpses lying in the grave whom You remember no more, for they are cut off from Your hand.

7. You make me be at the bottom of the Pit, in utter darkness, in the depths.

8. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and so all Your waves; You cause affliction.   Selah.

9. You have distanced from me my companions; You make me an utter abhorrence to them; I am imprisoned, unable to get out.

10. My eyes throb from affliction; I call to You, O LORD, every day; I spread out my hands to You.

11. Will You work wonders for the dead? Will the shades rise to praise You?   Selah.

12 Will Your steadfast love be recounted in the grave, Your faithfulness in Perdition?

13. Will Your wonders be made known in the Dark, Your righteous beneficence in the land of oblivion?

14. As for me, to You, O LORD, I cry out, and in the morning my prayer greets You.

15. Why, O LORD, do You rebuff my soul, do You hide Your face from me?

16. Afflicted and dying from my youth, I suffer Your terrors wherever I turn.

17. Your fury overwhelms me; Your dread assaults destroy me.

18. They swirl around me like waters all day long; they encircle me totally.

19. You have distanced from me loving friend and neighbor, my companions. Darkness.

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Translation by Rabbi Benjamin Segal.   It is well worth reading his explanations, especially for this unusually dark psalm.

He also points out that "It is of note that the Church prescribed this psalm for Good Friday, implying an appropriate description of Jesus’ suffering on the cross."

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PHOTOS: 

1.  The newer section of the ancient cemetery of Tiberias.

2.  Me struggling in Fribourg, Switzerland. 

3-4. Ancient burial caves, some still with the bones!, under St. Etienne/St. Stephen's in Jerusalem.

5.  Man praying at a tomb in Tiberias cemetery. 

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UPDATE:  See how Orthodox Christians made the blessing of the waters for the Feast of Theophany, not at the Jordan, but on a frozen lake in Minnesota!   Great photos at Leif's blog.
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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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Eyes to the sky

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Eyes to the sky
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St. Etienne basilica and monastery of the Dominicans, home of the Ecole Biblique.

For SkyWatch Friday

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Feeling welcome at St. Stephen's Monastery

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Many cities in the world have an Open House weekend once a year.

Jerusalem had her Houses From Within weekend last month with over a hundred significant sites open to the public free of charge, some with guided tours.
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But no one anticipated the huge turnout at St. Etienne/St. Stephen's Monastery, home to the prestigious École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem!

Curious Israelis crowded into the basilica, filling every pew and even the monks' choir stalls.

Many had to stand. Or we sat on the floor.

Who ever heard of such a thing?!

In one Shabbat afternoon alone, about a thousand Jews came to see and hear (and that's not counting the morning tours and open house)!
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One lone man stood in front of the throng and without a microphone explained this place, his home. He somehow made himself heard, and he also make himself understood and appreciated.

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Thank you for your gracious guidance, Fr. Jean-Michel de Tarragon, O.P. [Order of Preachers, i.e. Dominicans], priest, friar, scholar, teacher, photographer, and the in-charge of a huge old photo archive from glass plates.
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I see on the Internet that yesterday the Catholic Church had a day to honor men and women religious, those called to the vowed life, the monks and nuns of the cloistered and contemplative vocation. Pro Orantibus Day (For Those Who Pray).

God bless all the monastics, of whatever kind, in every country.

This post is for "That's My World," and I must say, without these Brothers and Sisters our world would be a poorer place.

In case you missed Frere Jean-Michel's guided tour, you can enjoy a 12-minute video walk through St. Stephen's and the Ecole here.

Great photos and info in French here.

And other posts and links are under my label "Ecole Biblique."

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St. Stephen's Day and church

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On the day after happy Christmas comes the sad story of Saint Stephen's Day.
Stephen was stoned to death in the year 34 or 35, probably just outside the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Dominicans purchased the land in 1884, did excavations, and then built the new basilica of St. Stephen, Protomartyr.

In French its name is Saint Etienne.

I read here that "The original church was built by the Empress Eudocia at the end of the fifth century to house the relics of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and the adjoining monastery complex was so large that by the beginning of the sixth century it housed close to 10,000 monks."
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Well, there are Dominican monks there at the Priory today, but not ten thousand!

On an ancient column the freres inscribed the Roman numerals for 460, the year of the original Byzantine church over which the modern one was built and re-dedicated in 1900 (MCM).

Also home to the famed Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise, this is a beautiful and quiet place of prayer and of study.

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(See an earlier post about their First Temple period burial complexes. )

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UPDATE: I woke up this morning worrying. -- Surely there could not have been 10,000 monks living here, as in my quotation!

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So further research revealed this:

"The walled monastic compound was the largest of all church structures in or around Jerusalem for over a century, larger even than the precincts of the Golgotha complex. Evagrius described the site as "a vast temenos [sacred enclosure], remarkable for its proportions and for its beauty." Cyril of Scythopolis referred to the compound as a "diocese" due to its size, and wrote that the grounds were large enough to house the 10,000 who gathered for a monastic revolt in 516 to protest the Emperor's opposition to the Council of Chalcedon."

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This is from a remarkable project called

The Byzantine St. Stephen's Project, A Biocultural Reconstruction of Urban Monasticism.

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Another source explains that "10,000 seems to be a literary exaggeration. Based on the archaeological record, the entire population of monks in the Judean desert was estimated to be 3,000. . . . Many medieval pilgrims, impressed by the numerous caverns in the Kidron cliffs, claimed that the number of monks in the past was 10,000. . . ."

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Returning in an urn

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The story of the urn begins at the prestigious École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. On March 31 I was privileged to attend part of their Qumran Day, a day of lectures in memory of John Strugnell.
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls the scholars at the School of Biblical and Archeological Studies have been deeply involved in the translation and interpretation of the texts. The original Scrolls team was appointed in the early 1950s by Jordan. (The Ecole is on Nablus Road in East Jerusalem, formerly Jordanian territory.) Young Strugnell came to the Scrolls Project in 1955 from Oxford. By 1987 he was editor-in-chief.

Photo courtesy of Fr. Jean-Michel de Tarragon

Strugnell taught at Harvard School of Divinity, but he spent his summers working on the scroll fragments at the Ecole Biblique. So it seemed right that after his death, late in 2007, his ashes would be brought from the United States to Jerusalem.
The Ecole is with the Priory of St. Stephen. Its monks are the teachers. The Dominicans are the Order of Preachers.
Here in the photo (courtesy of Fr. Jean-Michel) the brothers sing from the rite (in Latin and French) as a schola (choir) in the burial place.

Photo by Fr. Jean-Michel

Holy water was sprinkled toward the place of the entombment.

Photo by Fr. Jean-Michel

In the urn--John Strugnell's ashes.

Inside the wall in the crypt are the mortal remains of the deceased Brothers. The body is placed in a simple wooden casket. The marble marker bears the Brother's name, date of birth, date of monastic profession of vows, and date of death.

The present Dominican monastery (from the late 19th century) is built over remains of a 5th century Byzantine monastic complex. Back then the dead were buried in these ancient tombs cut in the rock. The body was buried. Cremation is not and was not allowed in Judaism and it took centuries for Christianity to begin to allow it.

You photo bloggers will enjoy meeting Brother Jean-Michel de Tarragon, here shooting with the big camera.

After getting his PhD (on Ugaritic Religious Cuneiforms Texts) at the Sorbonne, he came here and made Jerusalem his home. Until recently he served as the Prior of St. Stephen's Priory.

When he is not in a class teaching, he does photography for the institute.

He is also very enthusiastic about his project of converting between 15,000 and 18,000 glass plate negatives (from the really old-fashioned cameras) into digital pictures on compact disc.

St. Stephen's has accumulated the world's biggest private collection of old photos of Israel.

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Amazing to see the 19th and early 20th century photos of life here in this land! The country is lucky to have Frere Jean-Michel in Jerusalem.
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Interesting stuff:

A Jerusalem Post article about Professor Father Tarragon and the monastery

Ecole Biblique website in French and English
A new critique by Geza Vermes on the controversy surrounding both Strugnell and the handling of the translation and publication of the DSS
Photo of Qumran caves where the scrolls were discovered

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