{N}THE MOUNT OF OLIVES{/}

The Mount of Olives is found to the east of Jerusalem, between Mount 
Scopus to the north and Mount of Scandal to the south. It forms part of a 
chain of hills that give origin to the line of summits that are elevated 
between the western and eastern slopes of the central mountainous crests 
of the country. The valley of the Kidron separates it from the old city 
of Jerusalem and from the meadow around the Temple, that can be seen at a 
distance of one hundred meters. From the top, the pilgrim discovers, the 
inside of the walls: the Mosque of the Rock outstands, with its golden 
dome catching the light, powerfully calls attention to it; the mosque of 
El-Aqsa, is more discreet; the two somber domes of the basilica of the 
Holy Sepulchre. From these points of reference, one discovers the diverse 
holy places among the innumerous bell towers and minarets that stick out 
over the buildings. But the panorama spreads out even more towards the 
east, towards the desert of Judah, which, starting from the same gates of 
Jerusalem, descend until the depression of the Dead Sea, and further 
beyond, towards the mountains of Moab. This mountain receives its name 
from the olives that, during centuries, covered the hillsides and of 
which remain hardly any examples, only some damaged and torn up trees in 
the orchard of Gethsemane.
The numerous churches spread out over the hill commemorate the last 
moments of the earthly life of Jesus: his final teaching to his disciples 
in the {C}Church of the Pater{/}, the lamentation of Jesus over Jerusalem in 
{C}Dominus Flevit,{/} the {C}Garden of Olives{/}, and the {C}Church of the Agony{/}. 
The golden domes of the russian Church of Saint Magdalene, constructed at 
the end of the nineteenth century, give a touch of clarity and 
originality to this place, impregnating it with an air of sorrow and 
sadness. However, this place charged with shadows and suffering, is 
opened to the light of the Ascension, where the glory of the risen Christ 
is revealed.
All of the above biblical references are linked to the New Testament. 
Yet, in the second book of Samuel, the Mount of Olives is already 
mentioned as well as a holy place, {C}where God is worshiped{/} [2Sam_15,32]. 
{K}IN THE OLD TESTAMENT{/}

The Mount of Olives is mentioned a few times in the Old Testament, and 
only as a result of the takeover by Absalom when we hear it named for the 
first time. David preferred to flee from Jerusalem with the soldiers that 
stayed faithful to him, in place of resisting, so as not to risk having 
to kill his own son. The old king goes down to the valley of Kidron in 
order to take, in this way, the road to Jericho, since {C}he went up to the 
Mount of Olives{/} {C}weeping, with his head covered and his feet bare. All 
the people who were with him had their heads covered and wept as they 
went. {/}

[2Sam_15,30].
Four centuries later, when the glory of God abandons Jerusalem, where its 
Temple has been {C}profaned by all the abominable things that are practiced 
there{/} [Ezk_8,13], the prophet Ezekiel tells us that: {C}the Glory of 
Yahweh rose, leaving the city to rest on the mountain that is to the 
east.{/} [Ezk_11,23]. There, over the Mount of Olives, the Spirit takes up 
Ezekiel and brings him to join the exiled ones in Chaldea.
In the last centuries before Christ, an apocalyptic vision, told in the 
book of Zechariah, describes the final battle, the victory of Yahweh and 
the glory of Jerusalem, and over the Mount of Olives Yahweh is raised up 
as Judge of the nations:
{C}The day of Yahweh will come ... I will let all the nations come against 
Jerusalem to attack it. The city will be taken and houses pillaged, women 
violated ... Then Yahweh will go forth and fight against the nations as 
he does on the day of battle. On that day his feet will rest on the mount 
of Olives, facing Jerusalem on the east and the mount of Olives will be 
split in two from east to west by a deep valley leaving half of the 
mountain to the north and half to the south ... and Yahweh will come and 
all of his holy ones with him. {/}[Zec_14,1] - [Zec_14,5]. 

{K}- THE PALMS - BETHPHAGE{/}

On the southeastern extreme of the hill, the small town of Bethphage 
seems to be nestled in a green patch of thick vegetation.
{K}THE ENTRANCE TO JERUSALEM{/}

According to the Law, the Passover must be celebrated in Jerusalem, but 
this small city had less than 25,000 inhabitants in the times of Jesus, 
and therefore it was too small to accommodate all of the pilgrims that 
came up to the temple for the feast. Those that did not find shelter 
inside the city looked for it in the towns and villages in the 
surrounding area. Bethphage was very close by, at about two kilometers 
approximately, exactly the distance that was authorized for travel on a 
{C}day of the sabbath {/}[Acts_1,12]. Therefore Bethphage was considered as 
an extension of Jerusalem and the town was practically invaded during the 
festivities. Jesus formed part of one of those groups of pilgrims that 
had succeeded in finding lodging in Bethphage, or a little farther away, 
in Bethany.
{C}When they drew near Jerusalem and arrived at Bethphage, on the mount of 
Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, with this mission: "Go to the 
village in front of you, and there you will find a donkey tied up with 
its colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me."
This happened in fulfillment of what the prophet said: Say to the 
daughter of Zion: "see your king comes to you in all simplicity, riding 
on a donkey, a best of burden {/}
{K}YOUR KING COMES RIDING ON A DONKEY{/}

Jesus enters into the city riding on a donkey, bringing a message of 
peace, as the prophet Zechariah had already announced at the end of the 
fourth century [Zec_9,9]. But Jesus is also a lord, his royalty remains 
underlined by the gestures that make reference to the ritual of the royal 
enthroning: cloaks and branches spread out on the road where the king had 
to pass, and the acclamations of the crowds that evoked the verses of the 
Great Hallel [Ps_118,1]. When the Feast of the Tents was celebrated, with 
this psalm the universal royalty of God is acclaimed and the coming of 
his Messiah. Like all Israelites, Jesus must have sung this psalm each 
year of his life on earth, in order to give thanks to the all-powerful 
God, liberator and savior. But from the beginning of his ministry, Jesus 
had chosen a different path from what the people expected. God had not 
sent him to return to Israel its political independence, but rather to 
establish his Kingdom among humankind, and his path would pass through 
poverty, voluntary deprivation and death on the cross.
{K}JESUS WEEPS OVER JERUSALEM{/}

On the slope that looks towards the Temple, a church commemorates the 
stop that Jesus made in front of the Holy City, when his ascent to 
Jerusalem was concluding and the descent to the Mount of Olives was 
approaching after going over the top:
{C}When Jesus had come in sight of the city, he wept over it and said, "If 
only today you knew the ways of peace! But now your eyes are held from 
seeing. Yet days will come upon you when your enemies will surround you 
with barricades and shut you in and press on you from every side. And 
they will dash you to the ground and your children with you, and leave 
not a stone within you, for you did not recognize the time and the 
visitation of your God".{/} [Lk_19,41] - [Lk_19,44].
None of the inhabitants of Jerusalem came out to receive Jesus at his 
entrance into the Holy City; he was only accompanied by his disciples and 
the people from the neighboring towns. He came to his own house and his 
own did not receive him [Jn_1,11]. Today Jesus weeps for the city that 
was not able to recognize in him the King - Messiah, nor how to welcome 
his message of peace. Just as the prophets did in ancient times, Jesus 
announced the ruin and fall of Jerusalem. Forty years later the prophecy 
is fulfilled. Titus imposed a siege on the city. The Romans camped on 
Mount Scopus and on the Mount of Olives. At the end of May in the year 
70, the northeastern wall is torn down; the Romans advanced until the 
second wall that, at the same time, also gave way. The fortress Antonia 
was conquered on the 24th of July (month of Ab for the hebrew calendar, 
which is the same one that Nabucodonosor took over Jerusalem in 587) and 
on the 29th the Temple was burned down. The last defenders were put to 
death or reduced to slavery; on the 25th and 26th of September, Jerusalem 
was no more than ruins. 

{K}- GETHSEMANE{/}

In the evening of Holy Thursday, during the vigil of his Passion, Jesus 
leaves the Cenacle with his disciples and very probably takes the steep 
street that goes down from the hill of Zion towards the valley of the 
Kidron where the olive grove named Gethsemane was found; a name which 
means: an oil press in the aramean language. Jesus goes to this place 
very familiar to him, where he liked to spend the night with his 
disciples.
There he starts to pray: in front of him the Temple rises up, the 
Sanctuary of the Glory of the Father, from whom he knows he was sent, 
even more deeply in this hour.
Gethsemane is a place that is frequently visited and loved by the 
pilgrims. They come here with the most profound recollection in order to 
associate their prayers with those of Jesus the night of Holy Thursday.
The Olive Trees, with knotted trunks and bare and damaged branches that 
are seen there now, are without a doubt, more than hundreds of years old, 
but in no way do they reach the two thousand years of age, nor can they 
go back to the gospel times.
The Olive Trees of the first century of our era could not have resisted 
the two sieges of Jerusalem by the Romans. In 70 and in 135 A.D. they 
were used in order to construct the continuous stockades around the city 
according to the way of besieging the cities practiced by the Romans, to 
make war equipment or simply to feed the fires of the legions' camps. But 
the place where Jesus spent the night praying before his arrest remained 
in the memory, just as the Mount Calvary and the Sepulchre did. Saint 
Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem in the middle of the fourth century, makes it 
a tradition established during this epoch, the custom of the Christians 
to gather together at the top of the mount around their bishop and to go 
down by the lights of torches until the place where Jesus entered into 
agony. There they celebrated the liturgy of Holy Thursday.

{K}- THE TOMB OF THE VIRGIN{/}

At the foot of the Mount of Olives, at some fifteen meters to the north 
of the garden of Gethsemane, a stairway of some fifteen steps goes down 
towards a square atrium; one of its sides is closed by a wall that dates 
approximately to the year 1130, from which a door of ogival arches opens 
up. From there a stairway of some fifty steps leads to the interior of a 
church, nowadays completely underground, due to the progressive 
embankments of the valley of the Kidron from the beginnings of the 
christian era. The christian tradition worships the tomb of Mary here.
{K}THE TOMB{/}

The tomb possesses a funerary bench. A flood due to torrential rains in 
February of 1972 implied the restoration of the small sanctuary. 
Underneath the altar can be seen the support cut into the rock as was 
common in the jewish tombs of the epoch. One perceives that before the 
construction of the altar, it was perforated with numerous cavities since 
the faithful extracted fragments of it as relics. This would be 
sufficient testimony to confirm the ancient tradition of Jerusalem, 
according to which the body of Mary had been deposited here before her 
assumption.
{K}THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY{/}

There are numerous authors who consign the burial of Mary to the Valley 
of the Kidron, and this before the Council of Chalcedony (451 A.D.) in 
which Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, testifies to the fact before the 
emperor Marcian and the empress Pulqueria, but furthermore, and with the 
same strength and assurance, proclaims his faith in the Assumption of 
Mary. In this way the most ancient tradition of Jerusalem, sustained by 
the apocrifal texts, tells us that Mary was placed in a tomb in 
Gethsemane before being taken up to heaven.
She is full of grace - meaning - that over which has overflowed all of 
what is good, of luminous quality, and holy among the gifts that God 
could give to any creature, without ever having been touched by evil or 
its minimal shadow; could she then have known a death distinct from that 
of her son? For Mary, according to the will of God, one day the hour 
arrived for her to pass from this world to the Father's. After having 
shared in the sufferings of her son, she was called to share in the Glory 
of his Resurrection.

{K}- THE ASCENSION{/}

The last appearance of the risen one told by Luke, took place on the 
Mount of Olives, and this fact is not without relation with the texts of 
Zechariah. Jesus the first ever resurrected from among the dead, is 
elevated to the right hand of God where he sits like a Judge over the 
living and the dead [Acts_10,42].
In the place from where, according to a tradition somewhat decorated over 
time, Christ ascended to heaven, leaving the imprint of his foot over the 
rock, the Byzantine constructed a small temple, separated from the 
surrounding rock, as the tombs of the valley of the Kidron are 
characterized. Saint Jerome, who at the end of the fourth century, 
remained in Palestine, speaks in his writings of the veneration that was 
lavished on the footprints of the Savior.
