We've all heard the bible stories. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and was crucified in Jerusalem. However, those are stories and I never thought of them as real places.
I was really surprised to learn that you can walk the stations of the cross in Jerusalem.
The stations are marked like this
I saw some of the stations on Sunday. Val and I are going to go back to Jerusalem to walk all of them.
According to the Roman Catholics and many of the other Christian branches, this is the tomb of Jesus and the site of the resurrection. That Resurrection. You know. The important one.
This is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Church contains the last 5 stations of the cross including the actual site of the crucifixion.
I know what you're thinking. Wasn't the crucifixion on a hill... like outside...? The Church was built 300 years after the crucifixion by Constantine's mother. As you can imagine, this leads to all kinds of controversy:
- is this the actual place? Some branches of the church consider the tomb to be in another location entirely.
- which branch should control the church? There is an elaborate agreement among the branches over which parts of the church are controlled by which branch and the Muslim family (not kidding) across the street has the actual key to the church.
At any rate, even though I am hardly a practicing Catholic, I found this place profoundly moving. Val and I are going to go back on Saturday and spend more time here. I will enclose more pictures then.
I was really surprised to learn that you can walk the stations of the cross in Jerusalem.
The stations are marked like this
I saw some of the stations on Sunday. Val and I are going to go back to Jerusalem to walk all of them.
According to the Roman Catholics and many of the other Christian branches, this is the tomb of Jesus and the site of the resurrection. That Resurrection. You know. The important one.
This is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Church contains the last 5 stations of the cross including the actual site of the crucifixion.
I know what you're thinking. Wasn't the crucifixion on a hill... like outside...? The Church was built 300 years after the crucifixion by Constantine's mother. As you can imagine, this leads to all kinds of controversy:
- is this the actual place? Some branches of the church consider the tomb to be in another location entirely.
- which branch should control the church? There is an elaborate agreement among the branches over which parts of the church are controlled by which branch and the Muslim family (not kidding) across the street has the actual key to the church.
At any rate, even though I am hardly a practicing Catholic, I found this place profoundly moving. Val and I are going to go back on Saturday and spend more time here. I will enclose more pictures then.
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