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Jordan Pilgrimage Day 1 - This is Holy Land Too!

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Shortly after we registered for the Footsteps of Jesus Pilgrimage we were asked if we were interested in a four day pilgrimage in Jordan. And we boldly said yes. Why not? We will probably not get back to this part of the world and seeing Jordan was an added bonus. So, we along with a few others signed up. When I signed up, I thought of it as a tour more than a pilgrimage. The pilgrimage motif came about later in England. And even as we began, it did feel like a tour more than an ongoing time in the Holy Land. Holy Land meant Palestine-Israel – right? Maybe not. So, this became both a pilgrimage and a tour, as we eased out of the intensity of the past 10 days. At 7am we were outside ready to board our bus with bags in hand. It felt a tad early, but we discovered why soon enough. We drove down the road to Jericho and on to the the King Hussein Bridge, also known as the Allenby Bridge, which is also is the only official border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan and is the sole ...
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Footsteps of Jesus Pilgrimage Day 10 - Walking the Way of the Cross and Resurrection

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Day ten. The last day of this amazing experience was upon us far too quickly. I t began early, and this time in silence, carrying a cross. We walked down through Herod’s Gate to the Lions Gate and the beginning of the Via Dolorosa. We were asked not the speak, not to take photos, but to just be in this quiet time. We began at the site of the Antonio, the Roman fortress built on the end of the temple complex where tradition says Jesus was condemned to death. From there we walked and prayed the traditional route of the Stations of the Cross, stopping and hearing the readings and prayers at each Station, until we arrived at the Ethiopian roof huts and the entrance to Holy Sepulchre where we heard the last readings of prayers around Jesus’ crucifixion and death. The Ethiopians were holding a service, so we had to go around to enter Holy Sepulchre, where we had time in the growing crowd to be in this story. I have done the via dolorosa – stations of the cross once before, when I was the...
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Footsteps of Jesus Pilgrimage Day 9 - An Afternoon in the End of Holy Week

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After lunch back at the college for lunch, we were bused up Mount Zion – The Western Hill. Here we come near the end of holy week, with the last supper, trail and denial. First we went to the Cenaculum or the Upper Room – or at least a building situated on the traditional site of the upper room. Tradition situates this site with where Mary may have stayed/lived. Next door is the Dormition Abbey - Hagia Maria – an alternative site for the Virgin Mary's death. We tried to find this later but my map reading skills deserted me. Honestly, we started out from where we wanted to go, found our way into the Old City through the Jaffa Gate, wandered around for awhile trying to work out where I wanted to go, and then saw it back where we started, too late to even try to go there. Bonnie had had enough by then anyway. Fair enough. So back to the Upper Room. Over the centuries this has been a church and a mosque, and currently the site is within a Jewish School. It is a much more contested s...
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Footsteps of Jesus Pilgrimage Day 9 - A Morning Walking with Jesus

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Day nine – the penultimate day – was a long and hot day. The morning began with a quick bus trip up the Mount of Olives to the Chapel of the Ascension. The first place Christians gathered to remember the Ascension was a bit further down the hill, in a cave associated with the memory of Jesus. This would have provided a safer place to gather and worship in the time of Roman persecution. We would meet another cave down at Gethsemane later that morning which served a similar purpose for Jesus. This cave was integrated into the Constantinian Church of Eleona, which is now part of the Pater Noster. More about that soon. After the Edict of Milan by the Roman Emperors Constantine and Licinius in 313 made it possible for Christians to freely worship the site of the Ascension moved up the hill a little to where the Chapel now sits. One tradition has the first church being built between AD 384–390 around Christ's last footprints. Another later tradition has this church, and the Pater Nos...
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Footsteps of Jesus Pilgrimage Day 8 - We Enter Holy Week

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Day eight began with a lecture from Rodney as he helped us begin our journey into and through Holy Week. These last three days were all about the places and stories of Holy Week, and he invited us to reflect on our own experience of that as we journeyed through this time. Then we boarded the bus, assumed our normal seats, and headed off through the Separation Wall to Bethany, a bustling Palestinian city struggling under occupation. Here John’s version of Holy Week begins with the raising of Lazarus. Here we begin the walk to the crucifixion. We walked up the steep street to a small entrance and steep steps down into a small antechamber. In the floor are cut steps down into a tomb that tradition teaches us was Lazarus’s first resting place. It is not as it was in Lazarus’ time as the Crusader Church built over the top resulted in masonry blocking much of the original tomb. The entrance we entered by is a “new” entrance – the original came from the Byzantine and then Crusader church. ...
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Footsteps of Jesus Pilgrimage Day 7 - An Encounter with Other Stories and Traditions

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Day seven was quite a day. It was Yom Kippur – the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The name Yom Kippur translates from Hebrew to English as the Day of Atonement. Jewish people may spend the day fasting, attending synagogue, or observing the holiday in other ways. It follows Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. And it is big in Israel – not surprisingly. And some factions within Jewish Israel are keen for everyone to stop and observe it in some way; including Muslims and Christians, and less orthodox Jews for that matter. It can be problematic. So, the normal programme of our pilgrimage was altered so that we were not needing buses and could walk everywhere. Our day began with a lecture on Holy Sepulchre, which was super helpful. I wish I had known some of that stuff before. The history begins with Helena identifying the site as that of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection and Constantine building the first church on that site, a much grander affair than the current one. T...
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Footsteps of Jesus Pilgrimage Day 6 - al-Haram al-Sharif (“The Noble Sanctuary”)

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Day six was a huge day. We left early, all dressed to the utmost modesty, especially the women, for al-Haram al-Sharif or Temple Mount. This is such a deeply contested and ancient holy place. For Jews it is the site for the two temples, and there are those who long to rebuild it on that site. For Muslims it is as the site where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven on his famed Night Journey . The site is so important to Islam that it is one of the only two mosques mentioned in the Quran (the other being the al-Haram Mosque in Mecca). The Quran also considers al-Aqsa Mosque to be the first qibla, or point of direction for praying, and the Prophet and Muslims prayed toward it before it was changed to Mecca; as such, al-Aqsa is also known as the Qibla Mosque. For more read here . The term “al-Haram al-Sharif" (Arabic for “The Noble Sanctuary”) is used interchangeably with the terms “al-Aqsa Mosque compound” or, simply, “al-Aqsa.” The elevated compound, which includes al-Aqsa Mosqu...
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