Authentically Sublime

One place I have not truly been is the Church of the Nativity, though I walk by it daily. Odd as it is, I have not visited the epicenter of Bethlehem Pilgrimages. The throngs kill my mood; maybe I have become a spirituality snob. I want my Nativity Church visit to take on a sublime and deeply authentic quality, to be alone in prayer with the place. The giant queue of muttering tourists deters me. Technically, I was in the building, once, but I don’t count that. Rafík, Zoughbi’s thirteen year-old son, wanted to light a prayer candle on our way to السوك to buy fruit one Saturday. Rafík went up to the priest, in athletic shorts and cleats, whispered in his unimposing way, and the priests nodded their assent and lifted the rope for him. I held his soccer ball and enjoyed the looks of indignation on the faces of all the visitors. It was a moment of authentic spirituality for my young friend, though.

Most Sundays, the Zoughbis bring me with them to an Arabic speaking Orthodox Church not far from the Star Street. I’ve learned to cross myself and to say the Lord’s Prayer in my own language when I notice the congregation reciting it in Arabic. I am still just learning. I like this Orthodox church because they must know that I am an interloping Protestant but they still give me communion. Just before the feast of Saint Francis Assisi, however, Zoughbi and the boys decided they wanted to attend at Santa Catalina’s, the Roman Catholic appendage to the Church of the Nativity complex (not “The Church” proper—they connect through a courtyard). We ended-up at the back behind a pillar. Once again, I crossed myself and spaced-out until the Lord’s Prayer.

The following Tuesday, I joined Liam for an evening vigil at St. Cat’s. Liam is another international volunteer; he just received a graduate degree in physics and looks as Irish as his name sounds. I rely upon my Catholic friends to interpret events like these and I’m rarely disappointed: I picked-up a few tid-bits about St. Francis and the way to distinguish between some Roman Catholic orders.

Liam was not any help deciphering the content of the liturgy, however. The service was conducted neither in English nor in Arabic but in Italian.

“I think I have a fighting chance in Italian,” I joked, “I know some Spanish... they’re related...”

To some extent, I was right. Thanks to a Latin alphabet I was able to sing almost all the words to the songs written in the bulletin and had a vague idea what I was saying (less than half but more than a quarter...). It was refreshing to be singing again but I still felt disconnected from the experience. Occasionally, there would be a reading: first Italian, then Arabic, English and French.

I discretely clicked a few photographs of the inside of the church at this point. The ornate ceiling and the artwork along the walls were beautiful but my attention was drawn to the supporting pillars: the place had obviously been partly destroyed at some point and then restored. The thickest of the pillars were made of more roughly hewn stone but the second-wave of architects had ingeniously managed to join the new parts of the structure smoothly with these relics, creating a network of supports that gave the space a hybrid character and a hint of antiquity. The monks handed us each a long, thin candle. The flame passed from wick to wick. The electric lights dimmed to nothing and I began to wonder if this was where I would feel a moment of heaviness or the movement of the Spirit. Like anyone, I meander closer and further from the Divine.

My hair stood on end when a long moan sliced through the thickening air of the church. From across Manger Square, for the fifth time that day as every day, the mosque loud speakers trumpeted the evening prayer. It was other-worldly, to hear that from inside the church. Barely a minute later, the sounds of the pipe organ and people singing in Italian rose into the air and juxtaposed against the modal changes of the prayers. The resonance of that moment was surreal; we were that close, Christians and Muslims, worshipping the One God with deepest reverence in two historic traditions.

That night, my worship took on a sublime and deeply authentic quality.