2005.04.23

*Pilgrimage Day 14*

Day 14

The feast of the passover started last night if I’m not mistaken. We toured till about 4PM since our Guide Phillip, was Jewish and had to be home early to honor the feast.

Most, if not all shops were closed today, we had to enter Old Jerusalem (the old city) just to look for vendors that sold food that we could eat for lunch.

Places of interest that we’ve visited:

• Church of the Pater Noster – Where the Lords Prayer (Our Father) is believed to have been taught to the disciples by Jesus Christ.
  The church is located in the Mt. of Olives, which is also a place where the Ascension occurred (we weren’t able to visit the Church related to it).
• Palm Sunday road – I guess this would be self-explanatory, the road where Jesus was welcomed right?
• Dome of the Rock/Dome of Omar (Muslim Mosque) – where Isaac was supposed to be sacrificed, and where the Temple was during Jesus’ time. The temple was also home of the Holy of Holies (Ark of the Covenant).
• Turkish Wall – This isn’t really a place, but we were able to get a view of the wall that encloses the “old city.” Seven of 8 gates are left open, the single gate left sealed is the Golden Gate / Gate of Mercy.
• Dominus Flevit – The place where Jesus was claimed to have cried over the “destruction” of Jerusalem… a prophecy obviously.
• Garden of Gethsemane / Church of the Nations – The Church of the Nations was built around the rock of agony – pertaining to The Agony in the Garden.
• St. Peter of Gallicantu – This is the place where Peter denied Jesus 3 times.
• House of Caiaphas – Adjacent to the structure previously mentioned – and under which, was the pit where Jesus was held.
• Upper Room – Room of the Last Supper (feast of the passover). Also claimed to be above the tomb of King David.

I guess, all places we visited today, save for the Turkish Wall, Dominus Flevit and The Dome of the Rock, could more or less be easily identified with the scenes from the movie The Passion of the Christ. Of course it may not be obvious, but you can suppose that the events that occurred in the scripture were in those mentioned.

Miscellaneous

I guess another interesting event that occurred during dinner was our companion Chuck, wore a skirt to dinner after being dared to do so.