Perspectives on the Global Catholic Community: The Old City of Jerusalem
By
Fr. Kevin E. Mackin, OFM
I
had the rare privilege of doing a global study sabbatical between leaving my 11
year presidency at Siena College and assuming a new presidency at Mount Saint
Mary College in Newburgh, NY.
This
study sabbatical introduced me to so many people from so many different
cultures: China, India, Israel, southern and northern Africa, the Balkans, and
Italy. In particular, this sabbatical brought me to the old city of Jerusalem
where I was intent on re-experiencing the central mystery of our Christian
faith: the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
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| Holy Sepulchre |
Despite
President Bush’s call for an end to the Israeli occupation and settlements on
Palestinian territory, a viable Palestinian state appeared to be less and less
attainable. Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians seem more divided and
polarized than ever before. Israeli checkpoints, especially the so-called
“Israeli security wall,” continue to aggravate Palestinians on their way to school,
work, or hospitals. When I went to Ramallah in the West Bank, young armed
Israeli soldiers stopped me and my Palestinian driver to check my passport and
car.
I
sensed the wall is making Palestinians more resentful of Israelis and breeding
more hate. Both Israelis and Palestinians seem to live in greater fear.
An Israeli told me that for the first time more Israelis are emigrating out of
Israel than immigrating into Israel. Christians definitely are
disappearing. The Israeli government policy of completely separating the two
populations plays right into the hands of the radicals on both sides. As
one person phrased it, if you have no contact with people, it’s easy to believe
that every Palestinian is a terrorist and every Israeli person is an oppressor.
He wondered whether Israel was becoming an apartheid state.
While
there is so much to see in and around Jerusalem, e.g., the Israel Museum with
its Dead Sea Scrolls and its 2nd temple model, the
Temple Mount and the Western or Wailing Wall, the Tower of David and the
ramparts walk, the Dormition or “sleeping” of Mary Abbey, the Yad Vashem
Memorial to the Holocaust, the Chagall windows at the Hadassah Hospital, the
Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemene, I chose to concentrate on three
holy sites: The Cenacle or Upper Room, the Via Dolorosa or Way of the Cross,
and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The
Old City is divided into four quarters: the Christian, Armenian, Muslim and
Jewish quarters. (use photo). The walls of Jerusalem have expanded and
contracted at least twelve times. And although scholars debate whether
Jesus actually celebrated his last supper in this Upper Room or walked along
today’s Via Dolorosa, the Holy Sepulchre is probably the place where Jesus
died, was buried and rose.
Jerome
Murphy-O’Connor’s The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide is an excellent
visitor’s guide to Jerusalem’s archaeological heritage. And Stephen
Doyle’s The Pilgrim’s New Guide to the Holy Land, a popular spiritual guide,
was immensely helpful in transforming me from a tourist into a
pilgrim. This pilgrimage into the sacred sites of the Old City
reawakened my faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
I
began my pilgrimage by walking in the afternoon from Holy Savior friary where I
stayed to the Cenacle or Upper Room to re-experience the Lord’s
Supper. The Cenacle is outside the walls, beyond Zion Gate, a place
where you can’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper but simply meditate on this mystery.
And that I did.
When
Jesus sat down to his last supper, he faced three challenges.
Jesus
had to leave us and yet wanted to stay with us. He solved this first challenge
with the words:” This is my body; this is my blood.” Yes, the bread and wine
look and feel and taste like bread and wine but they mystically become the
reality of the Risen Christ, his presence among us.
Jesus
also wanted to die for each one of us and yet he could die only once as a human
being. He solved this second challenge with the words: “Do this in remembrance
of me.” The same victim who died in Jerusalem centuries ago returns to altars
wherever the Eucharist is celebrated.
And
finally Jesus wanted to be one with us, impossible this side of heaven. He
solved this third challenge with the words: Take and eat; take and drink. Jesus
becomes one with us in communion. And what is the purpose of the bread we eat?
And the blood we drink? To form us into a faith community.
St.
Paul wrote: because the bread is one, we, though many, are one body. This
bread we eat and this blood we drink should not only form us into a deeper
faith community but also empower us to reach out compassionately (especially
with our time, talent, and treasure) to the people we meet every day. A
powerful meditation for me.
The
next morning about 10 a.m., I began my pilgrimage walk along the Via Dolorosa,
or Way of the Cross, and eventually made my way into the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, probably the site where Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised from
the dead.
As
I stopped at each station on the Via Dolorosa, I prayed with The Pilgrim’s New
Guide to the Holy Land. Our Christian faith proclaims that hidden in
every Good Friday is an Easter hope.
And
as I reflected on the sufferings of Jesus along the Via Dolorosa, I couldn’t
help but think of a story by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Prize winner and survivor
of Hitler’s concentration camps. In his work, Night, a memoir of
his experiences at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Wiesel describes how the SS
marched all the inmates to the roll call grounds and there hung a youngster –
all because an inmate had escaped and as a warning to the inmates not to try
another escape. And as the youngster hung there dying, Elie Wiesel, a youngster
himself, heard a voice behind him say: where is God now? Wiesel
questioned, not the existence of God; no, rather he questioned the justice of
God. He agonized over God’s silence in the face of overwhelming evil in
these concentration camps.
That
very question-where is God now?-has been echoed thousands upon thousands of
times in human life. It’s an eternal question: highlighted in the Book of
Job in the Hebrew Bible, highlighted in The Confessions of St. Augustine, in 19th century literature of Fyodor Dostoevsky, and in best
sellers like Rabbi Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Unfortunately
there is no satisfactory answer to the mystery of suffering and evil.
Ultimately, suffering is a mystery. And so: how respond to it? We have to
remember that God is always near us in the midst of suffering and
illness. God is our healer, forever bringing us to fuller life. He
will never abandon us. You remember the words of the Bible, “Can a mother
forget her child and, even if she does, I will never forget you.”
We
should avoid negative judgments about ourselves if we are indeed suffering or
ill. To say, “I really deserve it,” is really a form of self-hatred.
And
finally, we ought to remember that the mystery of suffering and illness has
healing and redemptive powers for ourselves and for others. Why?
Because Jesus, through the mystery of his own passion, death and resurrection,
healed us, made us one with God. Our faith proclaims that hidden within
the mystery of suffering is the glory of the resurrection. Jesus proclaims loudly
that suffering and death are not the final reality; healing and resurrection
are. And in the meantime Jesus challenges us to fight against evil and
suffering, to heal, console, forgive and create compassionate communities where
all people can experience human dignity, freedom of religion, fairness, peace,
truth and opportunity.
