Jerusalem Day 2

Today was Sunday and most of our pilgrims had a lie in. Then we made our way to join in the worship at Saint Georges Cathedral. We were privileged to join a festival Eucharist service to celebrate the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Saint Georges College in Jerusalem.

The preacher was the Rt Rev and Rt Hon Sarah Mullally DBE, Bishop of London.

For many of us it was the bilingual nature of the worship which we found very moving: many different nationalities or worshipping or saying the formal prayers in their own language.

Afterwards we had a talk from Archbishop Suheil, All about the work of the Diocese of Jerusalem. We were joined by the cathedral cat, appropriately named Georgie.

After our lunch, at the Schmidt School,

We went on to the holocaust museum, Yad Vashem.

It’s impossible to find words to express the impact of this place so I will simply say that it gave all of us a fresh insight into the backstory for the Israeli nation.

Our afternoon visits concluded withThe Church of the visitation, calling to mind the Visit of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.

Back at the hotel our day concluded with an incredibly moving talk from two members of the Parents Circle Rami Elhanan and Arab Aramin. www.theparentscircle.org if you look on you tube for Arab you can find some of his speeches – Both men spoke very movingly about how the pain of losing a loved one through violence and the conflict between Israel and Palestine has affected their lives. But both of them now work to try to help people to talk instead of fighting and to listen rather than throw stones.

Here they both are pictured, receiving a gift from us pilgrims along with Cathy whose church particularly raised funds for this particular charity.