He is Risen...he is risen indeed!

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As we gathered on the terrace of the dining room for breakfast a gentle breeze blew across our souls. While eating breakfast the sun shone in full glory as the orange ball crept into the sky. Coffee, awe and goodness filled our breakfast tables as we prepared for the journey down the Via Dolorsa  into Calvary By 7:00am we were praying the stations along the Via; the way of the cross.The Old City was in full swing this morning with shops opening, children rushing off to school and parents making their way to work.  Each station brought a different emotion as to the weight that Jesus carried for us as he walked the hill to Calvary. The movement through the city heightened our awareness that as the cross was forced upon Jesus' back to carry through the city the people would have been going about their daily lives.  They wouldn't have stopped, if they did they did not linger on his presence they simply noticed that another criminal was being led through the city. The Via Dolorsa leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the place in which we come to experience the rock of Calvary and the tomb found empty.  The darkness inside the church (you must ask your loved one about this church for it is far too much to describe within this simple blog) led us to bedrock in which the crosses would have been placed.  We climbed these steep stairs that are worn with deep indentations of where so many persons have journeyed to merely reach out and touch the spot where their Savior died.  The steep steps give way to a dark, humid area. There below a very ornate altar each of us knelt  down ever so gently and through an opening the size of the average forearm to touch he top of a bedrock.;A rock so smooth and so cool and yet filled with the warmth of a new life. Each pilgrim took their time touching the rock...giving thanks for the new life. Ah...but then you go to the tomb. The slab is so cold, so smooth but there in the tiny little cave of an area you feel the presence as you lean in placing your hand upon the slab touching and sensing what it might have been like when Mary went to pay her respects on the first day of the week.  He is not there...Jesus has risen he has risen indeed!! It was a morning of much silence and personal reflection.

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