I am in Jerusalem, or to be accurate, the Old City of Jerusalem, in a very nice flat in the Christian Quarter. It is may decades since my last visit to the Holy Land, when I only went to Galilee. A lot has happened since; back then our Israeli tour guides spoke endlessly of the Israeli desire for peace. Forty years on, peace is as far away as ever. We were supposed to go to Jerusalem on that trip, but that was cancelled because of some terrorist attack, now long forgotten, blended in with the memory of all the other outrages over the years. Now I am in Jerusalem against all advice, and I more or less have the place to myself.
The streets of the Christian Quarter are deserted. Many of the shops are shut, and the few that are open have gloomy proprietors. Even finding a cup of coffee is hard.
Not only do the streets not echo to the footsteps of visitors and pilgrims, the churches too are empty. There is usually a huge queue for the Holy Sepulchre, and the tiny space inside the Edicule where Our Lord rose from the dead. This morning, the Edicule was empty, and I sat alone watching the few workmen go about their business (the church is being restored) and hearing the Franciscans singing the Stabat Mater in a side chapel. Likewise, the Abbey of the Dormition was empty, and I shared the Cenacle with a solitary cat.
What all this means, I am not sure, but it does mean for me a great opportunity to see the Holy Places without crowds. But for so many others, the news is not good.
One place that is full of activity is the Western Wall; finding your way there through the labyrinth of narrow streets is easy: just follow the crowds of Orthodox families. When one sees the Wall, and the crowds there, one realises that for most Israelis, life is carrying on as normal.
The geography of the Holy City is perplexing. From where I am, it is downhill to the Wall, and Temple Mount is not much of an eminence. Indeed, from a window at the First Sation of the Cross you can look down on the Dome of the Rock. The television pictures always give the impression that the Dome of the Rock dominates Jerusalem. It does not. One has to revise one’s Biblical picture of Mount Zion.
Wandering around by the Lion’s Gate, looking for that first chapel of the Via Crucis this afternoon, I went through the gate that leads into the Haram al-Sharif and was sternly told to go back, not being a Muslim. (Non-Muslims can enter, but only by one special gate.) This was my first experience of being in the wrong place: everywhere else I have been, everyone has been very friendly. Jerusalem is not a threatening sort of place. However, the Via Crucis itself was instructive. The Via Dolorosa, supposed to be the path of Jesus’s journey from the place of his condemnation to the place of his burial (on which all Stations of the Cross are based) goes through a very busy shopping street, that is, an Arab souk, for part of the way, and passes a mosque. The Franciscans, as they have been doing for centuries, lead a crowd of pilgrims from all nations. Each station is in Italian, Arabic and French, and the prayers are in Latin, Arabic or French. The Muslim shoppers simply ignore the pilgrims in their midst; the mosque continues its very loud call to prayer, the Israeli soldiers and police look on with utter indifference. It struck me that when Jesus first walked that path carrying His Cross, some, a very few, felt sympathy; some were hostile; but most were completely indifferent. It is that indifference, so tangible during the Via Crucis, which is the most terrifying thing about Jerusalem today.