The final blog while on my adventure!!!

Thursday, the 14^th of October has got to go down in my personal history as one of the best days of my life (well, going Sydney time, it would be the 15^th and therefore my birthday!)! At 2pm, a group of us went the to the Mount of Olives to pick olives for a few hours. Little did we know that we were actually going to be given rare access to the Garden of Gethsemane and pick olives from the very area that is restricted and that Jesus himself may have walked on. It was the most interesting thing. Some of us were on ladders while others were picking up the olives from the sheets laid under each tree and putting them in buckets. Many pilgrims from around the world took pictures of us and mistook us for workers. We sang Arabic songs with the workers and drank their coffee. They asked us to come back the next day to help them again.

We finished picking about 5pm where more of our friends joined us in the Mount of Olives for dinner. We had some pizza delivered and ate together. It felt like the Last Supper! Four of us had decided to spend the night in 2 hermitages and experience a liitle of what Jesus may have felt on the night of his Passion. We were shown to our hermitages-they were so small and cute!

After dinner, 2 of the Priests from our group led us in the Sacrament of Penance. At the end of our confessions, we had a candle lit and placed these around the altar outdoors, near a grotto, where we were to celebrate Mass. After Confession (a time in which many were moved by their conversations with the top Priests from Melbourne, Australia and Durban, South Africa), we celebrated one of the most moving Masses I have ever had the good fortune to be a part of. For Eucharist, Fr Stephen used the local Jerusalem bread and broke it as Jesus would have done. The view we were looking upon was the whole city of Jerusalem, a view that has not changed much since Jesus walked through the Mount of Olives. After these celebrations, most of the group left while the four of us stayed back to reflect, write and have some time out.

My friend, Diana, and I awoke at 4:30am and watched the sunrise over Jerusalem from outside our hermitage. The view was spectacular! We arrived back at Ecce Homo for the walk of the Way of the Cross that was completed with Mass at the altar of Calvary in the Holy Sepulchre. The group was overwhelmed with the feeling that we had spiritually walked in the footsteps of Jesus and I know that I have never felt as close to Christ as I did that morning (my 30^th birthday morning!). In the afternoon, we attended a Shabbat Service at a Synagogue in New Jerusalem. It was upbeat and easy to follow.

During the day, a group of us went to the Dominican Monastery outside the Old City walls to see the Garden Tomb where people’s bones since the 5^th-7^th Centuries can still be found. This place was also the place where the relics of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, were kept before they were distributed to all different places.

For dinner, to celebrate my birthday, about 25 of us went to a restaurant that is an underground cave that was recently excavated, and I was told, has been dated to as far back as 2000 years! The night was fantastic.

This morning, we went to Abu Gosh where the Crusaders built a Church in honour of the story of Emmaus. The building dates back to the 12^th Century and the mosaics found inside are lovely. We were told that there are two possible locations for the historic location of Emmaus but we did not visit these. One has nothing there but ruins while the other has an Abbey built there. We celebrated Mass in the Church and the celebration was led and attended by nuns and monks from the Dominican Monastery attached to the Church, and other pilgrims. The chanting was incredible and the whole Mass was in French.

On our way back to Ecce Homo Convent, we stopped at the place where the Tomb of the Prophet Samuel is found. There is a Mosque on the top and a Synagogue on the bottom. It is one of the rare places where all three faiths can worship together.

Today, Mary MacKillop was canonised and I know that all the Aussies here would have liked to watch her canonisation. We are getting regular updates from loved ones.

Tomorrow we will celebrate the final Mass together, here in the Basilica and then share a lunch. I do not look forward to saying all the goodbyes I know I must make. It is amazing how people can come to mean so much to me after such a relatively short period of time! I know that I will forever remember them and am a better person for having known them!

The whole month long immersion experience has been worthwhile and irreplacable. I have learned so many things about Jesus, the Gospel of Luke, the Old Testament, our Jewish roots, about Islam, more about Eastern Churches, archaeology, my own faith, about the Palestinian people and in some ways, about the Israeli people. I know that I will be still processing many of my experiences and learning for a long time to come. I thank God that I was fortunate enough to be one of the 12 chosen by the Catholic Education Office, Sydney to be present here in Israel.