One of the first things that strikes you as you enter the city of Jerusalem through the Lion Gate is the golden glow that emanates from the buidlings. It's simply light falling on the sand-gold limestone that the buildngs are made of, but it almost seems as if the city itself has a halo, inviting you to reverence and worship.
As we walked the Via Dolorosa today, I was struck by the multiple forms of reverence shown throughout the ages and even today. In the Crusader church of St Ann, our voices resounded long after we stopped singing, the echoes revoicing our praise. A jumbled pile of large crosses by the ninth station bears testimony to the Friday tradition of carrying a cross while following in the footsteps of our Savior. In a small church, an Ethiopian priest kept vigil, wrapped in a traditional shawl of black with maroon stripes. And in the church of the Holy Sepulcher, women in headscarfs chatted loudly to one another, black-clad Orthodox priests lined the route of a procession, people knelt and kissed the holy places, others lit candles and offered them in prayer, and still others stood in reverent silence.
Reverence lies in the act of worshipping or paying homage to Christ. We do it when we sing and when we pray, when we genuflect or make the sign of the cross, even when we dress in our Sunday best. And yet each of these can become perfunctory, habitual actions that have lost their essential connection with our Savior. It's at times like these that being exposed to other, less familiar forms of reverence invites us to a new experience of worship and awe.
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