DAY  13

Tuesday, 19 January

After a swift but plentiful breakfast, we are met by our Palestinian guides, Avraham and Adel—whose name, we are informed, means “The Just One.” Driving through West Jerusalem, we see our old bus driver, Eli, chaperoning some other group. He catches sight of us and waves enthusiastically. Avraham is an Arab Christian living in Bet Sahour. He explains that rain is especially essential for Palestinian farmers because they don’t have the means for irrigation. Christians make up 2.5% of the Palestinian autonomous areas. In Bethlehem and Bet Sahour, however, they constitute the majority; 35% of the people in Bethlehem are Christian, while 80% of the Bet Sahour’s population is. In Israel in general, the Christian population is about 6%. We drive now to the check point put in place after the Gulf War and enter Bethlehem, passing Rachel’s tomb where women who are barren go to pray. In Arabic, Bethlehem means “house of meat;” in Hebrew it means “house of bread.” The town is situated in the region of Ephraim, a Canaanite word for “fertile.” Bethlehem is full of rubble and trash; we travel on patchy, uneven roads to Bet Sahour. Along the way we pass the Shepherd’s Fields, where 2,000 years ago the shepherds were visited by angelic hosts announcing the birth of a Savior in the city of David. They went up to Bethlehem the same way we are now traveling, and they returned rejoicing. Today, Bethlehem has a population of 12,000, 75-80% of whom are Christians, and most of them are Greek Orthodox, then Greek Catholics, then Roman Catholics, then Lutherans, and finally Jehovah’s Witnesses. Bethlehem was a very small village until recently, beloved by the townspeople who could trace their lineage here for 600 to 700 years.

We enter the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Fatima and are met by Father George, a thin, short man of formal and gracious manners. A short and pleasant sister rushes to and fro, preparing the altar for Mass. The apse contains a painting of Christ with hand raised to teach. Angels surround him, and shepherds below look up at him in wonder, arms outstretched. The blue curved sky of the dome is adorned with Arabic writing. We celebrated the Mass of Christmas Day, and it was. The Church filled with song, “Adeste Fideles,” “The First Noel,” “Silent Night” (with all of the verses—“shepherds quake/at the sight…”) and “Joy to the World.” Bet Sahour means “house of vigilance,” named for the night watch kept by the shepherds. The Church is dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima and Saint Therese of Liseaux. The school nearby is run by the Rosary sisters; we are joined by the Mother Superior. The altar, built in 1954, is made of marble-like stone decorated with scenes of the Nativity and shepherds, hand made, voluntarily by the people here, as was most of the church. Candles stand in a marble pedastle filled with sand; I light one for my family. After Mass, Father George tells us about the town and its  economy, “choked by Israeli occupation politics.”

Returning to Bethlehem, we pass a lot of construction—there is much to do in preparation for the Jubilee Year. We get off the bus in Manger Square, under construction to make it a pedestrian zone. Across the square from the mosque is the Church of the Nativity; it looks like a fortress because it was. On the right is the Armenian monastery, on the left is the Franciscan, and in the center is the Greek Orthodox. Queen Helena chose this spot because this is where Christians worshipped, and this is what tradition said. Also, when Hadrian came through to crush the Jewish revolt in 132 A.D., he destroyed all of the holy sites and built Roman temples on top of them; this site had a Roman temple on it, so we know it was a holy site.

Manger Square, Bethlehem

In 529 the Samaritan revolt was put down by Justinian, and he reconstructed the Church of the Nativity. The arch is from the time of the Crusaders. The entrance to the Church is one small, narrow, low door—a needle’s eye, constructed in this manner to prevent riders and carts from breeching the walls, it now holds the symbolism of causing those who wish to enter to bow low. A car joyriding on slick limestone at breakneck speed skids to a halt, and an ancient Greek Orthodox priest gets out. We bow down to enter the Church of the Nativity and pass thorough another door, this one wooden, to the stone-floored basilica hung with countless lamps and filled with incense, planted thick with four rows of eleven columns, each one made from one piece of red Jerusalem stone used by Queen Helena—these are the originals.

The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem. On the left: lighting candles in the upper church. On the right: the stone staircase that leads to the grotto.

The Church of the Nativity escaped destruction in 614 A.D. when the Persians, seeing paintings of the Wise Men from the East, spared the site. In 648 the Muslims arrived, and had such respect for the Church that they stipulated it as a place where Muslims could offer one out of the required five daily prayers; this practice is no longer in usage. In 1927 an earthquake damaged the Church; in repairing it, they discovered the original floor built by Helena in the 300’s, covered with mosaics.  The columns and walls of the Church are original. Mosaics on the walls, dating back to the Crusaders, depict ecumenical councils as well as the genealogy of Jesus. On the columns are paintings of saints, added during the Crusader era, while the baptismal font dates from the time of Justinian. The altar is Greek Orthodox. The lamps, which are plentiful, are all topped with ceramic egg-shaped designs, constructed to deter rats from climbing down the ropes and licking up the oil from the lamps.The huge candelabra in the center of the main altar was donated by a Russian prince, and bears a crown motif as a symbol of royalty. The Church originally built by Queen Helena was octagonal and small, but it was enlarged by Justinian.Through a stone entrance veiled in red and gold tapestry, we descend to the grotto. Inside is a labyrinth of steps, winding corridors, dark tapestries, bejeweled icons, low-hanging lamps, candles and carved-stone and spiral columns. There are three altars, marking the place where Jesus was born, the place where Mary laid Jesus in the manger and the place where the magi came to adore the newborn King.

The altar marking the place where Jesus was born. Reaching through the silver star rimmed hole in the floor, one can touch the actual rock of the cave.