A high concrete wall, 708 kilometres long, snaking through countryside and dividing villages and towns in two. Truly an apartheid wall if ever there was one.

An empty tomb. Death could not imprison in it He who came to bring down all walls. Its emptiness makes it awesome.

A well with access to a running spring in New Testament Samaria, now part of the West Bank. Two persons from two ethnic groups who had little, if any, love for each other, met and conversed. Salvation was the result.

A beautifully decorated grotto. Once it featured only barren rocks. An altar on one side marks the spot where He was born, and another one on the opposing wall marks where He was placed in a manger. The altars are so close but the owners are still so far away. Division is always a sign of lingering sin.

Barren deserts where the evil spirits roamed (at least this is what men of yesteryear believed). He prayed and fasted there for 40 days, deepening his concept of messiah before formally announcing it.

This and much more can be seen, touched, smelled, walked on and admired in the Holy Land. Benedictine archaeologist Fr Bargil Pixner had described this land as the Fifth Gospel. This appellative has been repeated by many since then. Pope Benedict, during his pilgrimage in May 2009, was right to encourage all Christians to come to this land because “the Gospel story, contemplated in its historical and geographical setting, becomes vivid and colourful, and a clearer grasp of the significance of the Lord’s words and deeds is obtained”.

After going there on pilgrimage with 18 other diocesan priests I can attest how right Pope Benedict was. We were under the guidance of Franciscan friar Fr Twanny Chircop, an able guide but most of all an excellent director of pilgrimages.

The Friars Minor have been the official guardians of the Holy Places since 1342. Their foresight has been providential. It is thanks to them and to their hard work, many times in the most difficult and dangerous situations, that Catholics today can visit many holy places. They bought property from Muslims, excavated different sites, built churches and cared for Catholics living there as well as visiting pilgrims. The Friars Minor had to endure a precarious existence even with Orthodox Christians with whom they now share the use of the Grotto of Bethlehem and the Shrine of the Holy Sepulchre.

In 10 days one travels a lot and visits many shrines but the most holy are undoubtedly the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Shrine of the Holy Sepulchre.

You feel enthralled in the divine love that surrounds you. You breathe it. You listen to it. You let it massage your soul, your psyche, your body

We were fortunate enough to celebrate Mass at the Grotto. Waking up at 4am to cele­brate Mass at 5am was certainly worth it. One enters the Orthodox basilica and descends the stairs to the right of the iconostasis or the wall of icons that gives you a foretaste of the sacredness one is immersed into once inside the grotto. The experience is too personal to explain publicly, the feeling too intense to share in words. One is blessed with similar feelings on the Golgotha and inside the tomb that briefly housed in it Our Lord. You envy the rocks of the Bethlehem Grotto where He was born, the rocks of Golgotha that were soaked with His blood and rock in the tomb where He briefly ‘rested’.

These are places where one can spend hours, nay, even days. You feel enthralled in the divine love that surrounds you. You breathe it. You listen to it. You let it massage your soul, your psyche, your body. You let it drain out your sins. You let it renew you. Words fail you. Only happy tears can express your deep feelings.

The celebration of the Mass in both places is an experience beyond compare. Both experiences were Tabor moments. But Tabor moments are always few and far between!

The celebration of Masses in the Bethlehem grotto and the Holy Sepulchre was overshadowed by the perennial disagreement – and sometimes violent conflicts – between different groups of Christian churches. Mass had to be just 25 minutes and only three priests could wear albs. This is in line with the status quo or the agreement reached in 1852 between different Christian churches about the ownership and the use of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem.

The Catholic and the Orthodox churches are so near and yet so far one from the other!

The injustice that can be seen outside these sacred shrines is much worse. I refer to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The first sentence of this commentary refers to the wall the Israeli government built to separate Israel from the rest of the country. There are also the hostile Israeli settlements built in the midst of Palestinian communities. This wall is the permanent reminder of the humiliations that the Palestinians suffer at the hands of Israel. It is the insult added to the injury, which is the negation of a Palestinian state. This is a grave injustice. The Vatican is, fortunately, among those who support the creation of two states as a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Great injustices are suffered by the Christian Palestinians who live in the Middle East. This region, which is the cradle of Christianity, has now been turned into a region hostile to Christians. Christians are today a drop in an Islamic ocean tainted by fundamentalism hostile to Christianity. But because many Christians are Palestinians they also suffer from Israeli intolerance and intransigence. They are often trapped in a Faustian choice: if they leave they will be safe but if they leave Christianity will vanish from its cradle.

Their number is alarmingly diminishing. Pope Francis was right to call those who remain as examples of fidelity to the Gospel.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt

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