SHMS Desert Formation Experience: Wednesday, by Jared Holzhuter

When we spend the day in Jerusalem, it's often overwhelming how much scriptural ground we cover in one day. Take this Wednesday for example. In the morning, we spent some time on the Mount of Olives at the at the church called Dominus Flevit (Latin for "the Lord wept"), which remembers Jesus weeping over Jerusalem's rejection of him as he approached the city from the amount of Olives. The church itself has a large window behind the altar, so while the first reading from Acts discussed the choosing of Matthias as an apostle, we could see the place on the Temple Mount where this discussion likely took place. After mass, it was a short walk (uphill) to the place of Jesus' ascension, then another short walk (downhill) to the place where Jesus gave the Out Father, and to top it all off, we prayed a holy hour over Jesus' teaching on the end times,

at the very location where he would have given these teachings. And we did all this before lunch. Not bad, huh?

And our Lord is so good to us. Amid all our deep meditation, all our profound thoughts on the last things and end times, what do we find as we break for lunch? A few goats decide to join the Jerusalem traffic. Now would be the perfect time to make some remark about Jesus separating the sheep from the goats, but let us instead admire the bravery of these goats, who seemed oblivious to the symphony of car horns.