Why pilgrims have always found peace in the Holy Land

by Douglas Brown
IF I had time to go on a pil grimage to the Holy Land just now I should not let the unhappy state into which Israel's Pyrrhic victory has landed her put me off. This is not only because the danger of getting in the way of a terrorist bomb is statistically far more remote than that of having a motor accident at home. It is also because it is a kind of act of faith to visit Jerusalem in time of trouble.
Jerusalem itself has had no real peace since the desolation foretold by Our Lord. but pilgrims who have gone there have always found it. Perhaps there is a lesson here to be applied to our daily pilgrimage through l ife.
A certain psychological preparation is necessary before you set out. It is no use expecting the surviving Christian monuments to he worthy of the events they represent. How could they be? But if you accept the monuments as they are and think only of the Gospel story. a celestial light will begin to shine through them, and you will no longer be distracted by the tawdriness and the pious frauds. or even by the Israeli-Arab conflict. "He is risen: He is not here". Jerusalem is not the terrestrial centre of our religion. It is the Empty Tomb. the beautiful broken shell from which the Light has gone forth to all the corners of the earth. If you so regard it. you will not be disappointed.
To the Jews, Jerusalem means something very different. They still await the Messiah, and in the meantime raw comfort from the physical possession of what remains of the Zion of their divinely guided history. Were it not for the dispossessed Arabs, no Christian need resent their political mastery. It means more to them than it did to the Crusaders.
Nevertheless. as a pilgrim you will not be primarily interested in the contemporary State of Israel. inspiring though it is. It is best to make your headquarters. not in the Jewish part of the city, but in that section of it which, before the Six Days' War, was accounted part of Jordan.
There you will he less disturbed by the preoccupations of modern nation-building, and can the more easily go hack in spirit to that past which Christ has made the present. Incidentally, since most •of the hotels there are still Arab-run. you will be free of the intricate dietary restrictions of the Levitical law.
It is best to establish yourself, not in or near the Old City. but in one of the hotels on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. beyond the Brook Kedron. There the whole panorama, so longed for by the Crusaders, stretches before your eyes. Sitting on a terrace, during the brief sunset, you can enjoy your private son et lumiere.
The road that Christ took on Palm Sunday up to the Golden Gate, the house of the Last Supper and of Pentecost. the hill of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre are all in some form or another visible; and so, too. is the site of the Temple, represented now (exceptionally for Jerusalem) by one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, the Moslems' Dome of the Rock.
A strange thing happens in the still evening air. The Holy City appears so close that you feel you could stretch out your hand over the valley and touch it.
Do you remember, that illustration in the now dis carded missal that many of us have used? "Oh Jerusalem, thou hast not known the time of thy visitation". Behind you, quite close. will be the field where Jesus wept, as He saw what you will be seeing. Beyond that will be the Garden of Gethsemane.
To return to more mundane matters. No pilgrim in Palestine need be dependant on "luxury" coaches and raucos guides. There is an excellent bus service, and the distances are small. You can stop a bus on a country road and ride into the little'town of Bethlehem, where, choosing your time between the arrival of the tourist coaches, you can kneel quite alone at the birthplace of the Salvation of the world.
Then there is Galilee. I don't think it matters that the Israelis and their overseas visitors have turned Tiberias into a gay resort of fashion. The countryside is all about. the lilies of the field and the lake. One doesn't need a proliferation of shrines where He had none: but there is a lonely chapel by the shore where He turned to Peter and asked, three times. "Lovest thou Me?"
The authenticity of some of these Holy Places may .be doubtful, and the guides are certainly importunate: No matter. Beneath all the untidiness and commercialism there is a sweet Franciscan simplicity, and you cannot fail to get the Message.
You should arm yourself with Friar Eugene Hoade's perfect jewel of a guide-book, recently brought up to date by the Franciscan Press in Jerusalem. It is realty a work of devotion, a kind of super imposition of the Gospel on Baedeker, a Vade Mecum you will treasure all your life.
Do not deceive yourself, however. During most of your perigrinations you will be in Occupied Territory. There will he road-blocks and armed patrols and, for the locals, much examination of passes: you will meet a cowed and resentful Arab population. Palestine is part of the world that contains Biafra and Vietnam. This is a reproach to us all. but it is also another reason for going there.