Jerusalem
the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, one of the most fascinating cities in the world, always, always, radiate a special energy.
It doesn't matter if they are empty or full of people, if it is early in the morning or late at night. If they do it while muezzins flood with their Muslim call to prayer the immensity of space, or when the bells of the ancient churches toll, reminding us that here, in this precise place, is the origin of everything.
In fact, the details matter so little that even the fact of being a believer or not ceases to be relevant when it comes to feeling that spirituality that here, in this piece of sacred universe for Jews, Christians and Muslims equally, it is palpable more than anywhere else.
And it is that Jerusalem is not just any city.
The first and only time I walked the streets of Jerusalem was in the Easter 2015 . I am not at all a religious person, rather the opposite, but it was clear to me that facing the essence of a place as particular as this would be much more special on these dates. And I was not wrong.
I wanted to live the greatest christian holiday in the same places where the events that are commemorated took place more than two thousand years ago. for something every year Jerusalem is invaded by thousands of worshipers in search of the history that unites them, but also by tourists and curious people eager to live the experience in first person. A peculiar combination that makes its streets the solemnity of the moment is combined with the festive atmosphere of those who are on vacation.
The wall of lamentations
I remember that while I was spending the first few hours in the city lose myself in the labyrinth of narrow alleys of its old area Everything was spinning: my head and my emotions.
I was trapped by the souvenir shops, present at every turn, which offered a crown of thorns than a rosary, a star of David or the Koran . I was anesthetized contemplating that wonderfully incredible mix of beliefs and religions coexisting in a few square meters. Orthodox Jews with their huge shtreimels on their heads were advancing towards the wailing wall . The Muslim quarter was overflowing with life with small shops where taste their breads and a good plate of falafel . The franciscan friars they walked in their sober brown robes dragging over the worn cobblestones aglow with history.
Everything happened without ceasing, with hardly any time to analyze and assimilate the overdose of information and stimuli that arrived every minute: we had to fight to keep them. To not forget any.
I remember with particular clarity, above all, the first way of the cross of many that I would end up running into during those days.
It was a group of German pilgrims who with songs and in rows of two made their way through the tumult repeating the route that Jesus made, two centuries ago, through the Painful way . They did it concentrated in their prayers, with narrowed eyes, moving slowly and oblivious to that world that continued to function around them as if the thing was not with them. As if they were more than used to seeing similar scenes day after day.
But if on that first occasion they were Germans, on the following days history repeated itself with Mexicans, Hungarians, Russians and even Filipinos . The latter, in fact, went a step further and recreated, in great detail, the penance of Jesus, romans and cross included —these, by the way, can be rented at various downtown businesses—, until reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher , the destination common to all processions and one of the most visited places in Jerusalem. The reason? It is erected in the place where the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Christ took place..
Surrounded by situations like this every second, life in Jerusalem seemed almost unreal to me, like a dream. As if everything took place in a different dimension, in a parallel universe . As if crossing the access walls to its Old City meant a trip back in time several hundred years ago.
Wasn't that precisely what was happening?
Franciscan monks (and a cat) in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
AND IN 2020… WHAT?
It is strange to imagine that those same streets full of people and those same churches brimming with life, are empty now , when the city should be more plethoric.
Because if the situation in 2020 were normal, if half the world were not confined to their homes and the borders remained open, the celebrations in the Holy Land that commemorate the last days of the life of Jesus Christ they would have started this Palm Sunday with the traditional blessing and procession of the palms , a mass ritual that usually begins at the top of the Mount of Olives and that recreates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
That would be just the starting gun for a great week in which the city would radiate mysticism in abundance . The fervor would be felt in the streets and the events would unfold endlessly in each of the neighborhoods of the Old City.
If everything went normally, any other Holy Thursday the faithful would gather to commemorate the Last Supper and the moments prior to the arrest of Jesus both in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and in the Cenacle —the place where Jesus met that last night with his disciples.
They would walk to church of Santa Maria Magdalena or know they would enter the Santa Ana . And of course, they would participate in the via crucis that each V Good Friday walks the Via Dolorosa until reaching, as the faithful would have anticipated throughout the week, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the burial of Christ would be celebrated.
Church of the Holy Sepulcher
However, despite everything, the good news for parishioners is that inventiveness has decided to become strong in the spiritual plane , and lest it be said that faith is at odds with new technologies , various events such as the readings that take place every year in the basilica of gethsemane —The place where, according to tradition, Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion — will be broadcast in streaming even in six different languages by the Christian Media Center. It will also be shared through the —more than ever— blessed internet the Vigil from the Holy Sepulcher on Holy Saturday.
A different way of living Holy Week, yes, but at least it is a way.
A CITY TO RETURN TO
What is clear is that when everything returns to normal —which will return—, and Jerusalem returns to being the city that it has been and will always be, Biblical scenes, holy places and historical sites They will also be the protagonists of the day to day.
The simple will become extraordinary again and the streets will again overflow with faithful and tourists , of curious and avid devotees of an experience that fills them. Let them check and confirm that, indeed, no one returns the same from a trip to Jerusalem.
Much less, at Easter.