On the Night He Was Betrayed

The Trial of Jesus

Today we begin to visit the places associated with Holy Week. We needed to be aboard the bus by 7:45 this morning which eliminated the possibility of attending Mass. The sites we are visiting today are very popular with pilgrims so we need to arrive early to avoid the crush of the crowd.

Our bus took us to the Mount of Olives to the site of the ascension of Jesus. This does not enter into 

The place of the Ascension

the scheme of Holy Week but it is near the other sites which are important to this time so we visited it today. There is a stone there which appears to have foot prints on it which have been revered as the last place Jesus stood on earth. It is in a little stone structure with a dome which used not to be there. It was originally open to the skies. The crusaders built an octagonal church around it from which the walls still stand.  Later the Moslems built a mosque. Now it is back in Christian hands. There is a simple moment of great solemnity when one can kneel and touch what may be the last evidence of the Incarnation. 

The Cistercian Church at Eleona
Pater Noster

The Our Father in Cherokee

Our next visit was to the Church of Pater Noster which commemorates the place where our Lord taught his disciples to pray the Lord’s Prayer. It is a Cistercian monastery and church, very plain. Throughout the courtyard and the church is the Our Father in many languages, some of which I had never heard. The church was originally supposed to be 
much larger but the money ran out and the building never completed. It happens all over the world!

The bus then took us to the Church of Bethpage, the traditional place for the start of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This is a fairly new structure. The artwork, murals, and even the windows which appear to have trees in them reflect the remembrances recalled here. In Jerusalem, the faithful gather here on Palm/Passion Sunday and reenact the entry of Jesus.

The Apsel of the Church at Bethpage

It is easy to see how all these events are related to one another when you view the proximity of the sites. I’m too used to South Dakota where 30 miles is a close distance. Here we are talking about a couple of blocks.

Our group descended the hill to a tear drop shaped church call Dominus Flevit, the Lord wept.  We are, geographically, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. We are on the slope of 

Dominus Flevit

The view of Jerusalem from Dominus Flevit

the Mount of Olives which faces the city. The view from here is spectacular. The Temple is in plain sight. There was a Mass in the church so we could not enter.

From this place we descended a bit further to the Garden of Gethsemane. Rodney took us first to a grotto which is a place where the disciples could have gone following the Last Supper. There is discrepancy in the Gospels about some of the events. One version has Jesus leaving most of the disciples behind and taking Peter, James and John, and then leaving them and going farther by himself. Another version has no mention of this. 

We also briefly visited a grotto referred to as the Tomb of Mary. It is an Orthodox Church where Mary’s body was laid to rest following her dormition. This is at odds with the western concept of her assumption. 

Crossing the street we went to the Basilica of Agony, another structure from the 1920’s built upon 

The Rock in the Basilica of Agony

The Dome of the Basilica of Agony

earlier structures of the Byzantine and Crusader eras. It was designed by an Italian architect who designed many of the churches we’ve visited. It is very dark inside so one is reminded of the night of Jesus betrayal. The rock where Jesus prayed is exposed before the altar so one can kneel and touch it. It is a moving experience to place one’s hands on that stone where the Savior agonized before his death. There are beautiful mosaics in the ceiling domes and in the apse and side chapels.

Following lunch back at the College, Ashraf, our driver, took us to the hill whereon the Dormition 

Entrance to the Cenaculum

Abbey is built. This is in the hands of the German Benedictines, the same as our guest house on the Sea of Galilee. It is next to this church that we continued our Holy Week reflections as we visited the Cenaculum, the 

In the Cenaculum

Upper Room where the Last Supper and Pentecost are both commemorated. The interior of the space is gothic in style so it is obviously not the same place that Jesus knew. It is constructed upon archeological evidence which indicates that the site well could be the place of those two events. 

I found it interesting to ponder the Institution of the Eucharist and the establishment of the priesthood, the “real” birthday of the church, and the popular “birthday of the Church” at Pentecost occurred in the same place. 

We walked down the hill to the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, which could be constructed on the 

St. Peter in Gallicantu

ruins of the house of Caiaphas, and there we remembered Peter’s denial of Jesus, his trial, and his imprisonment.

The mosaics in the church commemorate Peter’s denial, his 

The Dome of St. Peter in Gallicantu

repentance, and his the charge he accepted from Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to feed Jesus’ sheep. There are both upper and lower churches and then a cavern or cistern beneath that. Even lower is a pit which is venerated as the place where Jesus was

The pit where the Lord was jailed

 kept in prison the night before his crucifixion. We sang “Ah, Holy Jesus” in that place.

There were so many things to reflect on this day. It will be some time before it all comes together. I do know that Holy Week will not be the same after I’ve seen these holy places.

The Valley of Hinnom