Upon landing at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, I encountered airport security for the first time armed with automatic rifles, a sure sign we were in the ever-volatile Middle East. While on Christmas break during my high school junior year at Notre Dame International in Rome Italy, my dad decided he would take mom, my brother and sister and me to Bethlehem for Christmas Mass. I was picked out of the line of arrivals in the customs area for an additional security check. I followed a serious but pretty military woman behind a screen where, without a word, she patted me down thoroughly and sent me on my way. I forgot to ask for her name, but it was a memory that stuck with me the entire trip (who am I kidding – for the last thirty-five years).
The hotel room my brother and I shared had a radio, rare for a hotel back in Europe, even now. We played with the dial and found an AM station that played Western music, with heavy rotation for a new hit from Ambrosia, “How Much I Feel,” a song which stuck with me the rest of the year (the band corresponded regarding lyrics with Kurt Vonnegut for a time, which I always thought was cool). We didn’t spend much time in the hotel, however, as it was required to travel with a tour for security purposes, and the tour guide kept us moving.
Buses carried our group every morning around the Holy Land, to the Wailing Wall, Lazarus’ tomb, to a kibbutz, to the Sea of Galilee, to Bethany where Martha, the mother of John the Baptist, asked why Mary, the mother of her Lord should come to visit her, and where Mary responded with the Magnificat (“My soul doth magnify the Lord…”). We saw the Dead Sea, and looked into the caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, and where I began a fascination with the Essenes, the Jewish sect that left Jerusalem to live in the desert and hid their religious writings in the caves there. There is no way to describe walking in the footsteps of Christ’s passion on the Mount of Olives, along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, and seeing where He was scourged, where He was raised on the cross, and where He ascended into Heaven.
On Christmas Eve night we were driven to Bethlehem to join an endlessly long line of other tours waiting to enter the church for Mass. I don’t recall that we ever made it into the church, such were the crowds, but I suspect that our efforts allowed the obligation to attend Mass to be fulfilled. It was a furiously fast trip, but while I was aware that I was already experiencing a special year studying in Italy, I knew that spending time in the Holy Land during Christmas was truly the trip of a lifetime. Thanks, Dad.
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