Sacred Heart Church, Hove, Opens its Winter Night Shelter

Last weekend the Brighton & Hove Churches’ Winter Night Shelter project for homeless men opened. This is the second year it has operated and the number of churches involved has grown from seven to 14 and the length of the shelter from 13 to 18 weeks. The churches are drawn from various denominations, including Church of England, Baptist, Evangelical and Roman Catholic.

The scheme uses a model devised by the Christian charity Housing Justice. This uses a minimum of seven churches, each church uses its own facilities to house the homeless for one night before passing them on to the next church which hosts them for the following night, and so on.

Sacred Heart Church in Hove is the Tuesday night church for the Brighton & Hove shelter, and this is the procedure we followed last night, which was our first night of the season.


The beds are ready

My wife and I arrived a couple of hours before the volunteers to arrange tables and chairs, check food stocks, review health and safety and do the necessary administration. By 7.00pm the Evening Shift, a dozen volunteers, had arrived and they quickly set about their tasks, mainly cooking, setting tables, erecting beds, putting out fruit and newspapers, and making final preparations in the Parish Rooms before our guests arrive.

At 7.45pm there is a pause for a team briefing, concluding with a moving prayer that ends with the words:

‘...Bless our working together this night,

Watch over us all,

And help us to pass on to our guests a true sense of their dignity

and of Your loving care.

Amen.’  

 

The kitchen starts to get crowded

Between 8.00pm and 8.30pm our 15 guests arrive, usually tired, cold, hungry and often wet. They have been referred to the project by four agencies in Brighton & Hove that specialise in the homeless: Antifreeze; First Base; YMCA and the council’s Rough Sleeper Team. The Churches’ Project representative also undertakes a risk assessment interview with each candidate before a final selection is made.

Volunteers then greet the men, explaining how our church’s facilities operate, what the timetable for meals is, the entertainment available, smoking breaks and so on. Steaming cups of tea and coffee are gratefully received, bags unpacked, beds made and the men sit down and begin to relax.
 
At 9.00pm, we say grace together and then dinner is served; a constant stream of volunteers shuttles back and forth from our tiny kitchen balancing plates piled high with rice, chicken curry and vegetables, other carrying jugs of fruit juice or cups of tea. The meal is popular with quite a few requests for ‘seconds.’ Most of the volunteers sit down to eat with the guests and the conversation gathers pace.
 
Sometimes a little bit of personal history is shared, the football results are analysed, the weather prospects discussed, stories of housing or job experiences are related, a joke is told. Fr. Kevin is sitting beside a man who seems to be unburdening himself, a common experience. Then the pudding arrives, hot apple pie with custard or cream. One man at my table has three helpings and is sizing up a fourth when I get up from the table, another says he is too full to eat pudding but changes his mind. A debate begins on whether the pie is home-made, the opinion is that it’s too good to be shop-bought.

Two free cinema tickets have been donated. Determined to avoid any charge of bias I’ve written each man’s name of a scrap of paper, scrunched them up and put them in a bag. In front of the men I invite one of the guests, a middle-aged Polish man, to draw the first name. He reaches in, pulls out a paper, unfolds it – and yells with excitement! It was his own name. The room erupts with cheers and cat calls.
 
By 10.30pm the four Night Shift volunteers arrive. Lights out is at 11.00pm but by 10.00pm many of the men are asleep. They are simply exhausted and the luxury of a comfortable bed in a safe environment is to be enjoyed as much as possible.
 
The Evening volunteers depart and the Night Shift settle into its pattern of two-on, two-off. There are always two volunteers on duty, awake and alert, reading, listening to music, writing Christmas Cards (or poetry). The air is stuffy now, noisy with snoring, but peaceful.
 
At 6.00am we have returned to the church Parish Rooms with the six Morning Shift volunteers. The bleary-eyed Night Shift brief us before departing. They have switched the boiler on and soon breakfast is in full swing. Eggs and bacon, bacon rolls, cereal, toast, juices are laid out. The radio is switched on at 6.30am, letting the men know it is time to get up. They’re quiet, subdued; several read the newspapers over breakfast, others linger over a smoke, some just sit and think, mentally preparing for the day ahead. A couple of guys mentioned last night that they cannot afford the 50 pence subsidised meal that one of the city charities advertises, so we press then to take some sandwiches, a boiled egg, a cereal bar with them.
 
By 7.30am they have left. Most have helped us to load the van with the beds and bags ready for transport to the Wednesday night church which One Church, a Baptist church in the city centre. There are a flurry of “thank you’s” and the men are gone.
 
The remains of the meal are put away, chairs and tables stacked, toilets cleaned, floors hovered. By 9.00am we leave a tidy but very quiet Parish Room. In another week it will start all over again.
 
It’s been a privilege to operate the night shelter. Apart from the opportunity to fulfil the Gospel injunction to feel the hungry etc, there are a variety of other tangible and important benefits. We meet members from other churches and build bridges while working together. Our own volunteers enjoy a tremendous sense of espirit de corps, they often arrive early for shifts, work with tremendous goodwill and humour, and leave reluctantly; we only need about 20 staff to cover three shifts but we have 55 volunteers, so we operate two alternating shifts. It is also a great opportunity to relate to the homeless; no longer ‘invisible,’ they are transformed into personalities who could – but by the grace of God – be ourselves or our relatives. And it also makes us think about what we truly value and if we value things more than people...        

Nazareth - Images of the Blessed Virgin Mary

We know nothing about the physical appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so it is natural that, being the Mother of God who ‘continues to exercise her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ’ as Pope Paul VI put it, all nations see her as ‘Mother’ through their own eyes.

The Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth is built on what is believed to be the site of Mary’s house, where the angel Gabriel appeared to her. There has been an altar here from the third - some say fourth – century; certainly, there is no question that the site has been continually venerated since antiquity. The present building, the largest church in the Middle East, has a wonderful collection of mosaic images of Mary, presented to it by Christian communities from around the world.

 For example...

KOREA

CHINA

EGYPT

INDONESIA

ITALY

GREECE

POLAND

THAILAND

SINGAPORE

VIETNAM

UKRAINE

PHILIPPINES

Israel – Day Seven – Jerusalem

This is going to be a short(ish) entry as we are back in the UK now and there are a million and one things to be done...but it would be negligent of me to miss out the last half-day in Jerusalem.

The morning began with Mass at the Co-Cathedral Church of the Holy Name of Jesus. This is where the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem hangs out. He is the senior Catholic bishop for the area and responsible for 70,000 Catholics in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Cyprus.

The current Patriarch is His Beatitude Fouad Twal, a Jordanian Arab, and the Patriarchate is situated in the Old City, behind a high wall with crenellations, the white and yellow of the Vatican flag fluttering in the breeze, surrounded by narrow twisting streets. Inside, there is a large courtyard and a number of buildings, including the Church.

As Fr. Ephraim prepared to say Mass I twisted my head this way and that, feasting my eyes on this small but perfectly formed building. To the left was a statue of St Peter (looking like it was copied from the one in the Vatican), and high up in the walls several brightly-coloured stained glass windows let rays of coloured light stream in.

A happy pilgrimage group then lined up for a souvenir photograph.

I did not know it at the time but a week earlier the Patriarch had joined a protest of Christians angry at the demolition of a house owned by the Latin Patriarchate and let to a Palestinian family. According to press reports, Israeli troops and bulldozers turned up at 5.00am, forced the inhabitants out, took away their cell phones so they could not inform anyone, and proceeded to demolish the house. The Patriarch was reported to have described it as ‘an act of vandalism that violates international law.’ Sadly, everyday life in Israel does not always reflect the beauty and peace found inside its churches. God bless the peacemakers in these fraught times.

After Mass we wandered about for a couple of hours until it was time to catch the coach to the airport.

In the souk near out hotel I noticed that we were walking over some old paving slabs. Then I noticed a plaque saying that they were part of the pavement built at the end of the Roman period in the third and fourth century – imagine, we were treading on the same stones that shoppers had walked over 1,800 years earlier...

Further on, we passed a sight that reminded me that Roman soldiers had once patrolled these same streets. Two thousand years have passed, it’s now women soldiers who walk the streets with modern weapons...but there is something infinitely sad about the fact it is still necessary to bear arms in a crowded shopping area after all these years.

Fortunately, we passed a musical duo joyfully sawing and scraping away as we boarded the coach for Ben Gurion Airport. Their happy music hung in the air and our hearts were lifted. From somewhere came an echo of The Holy City:

Jerusalem! Jerusalem!

Lift up your gates and sing,
Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna to your King!

Israel – Day Six – Jerusalem

 

Our first visit was to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is said to be sited over both Golgotha (the Hill of Calvary) where Jesus was crucified, and also over the place where He was buried, the Sepulchre. This is probably the most important and significant religious site in the world for Christians, and has been since the fourth century.

It also seems to be the most-visited site in Jerusalem with thousands of pilgrims pouring through the entry door each day, tour guides trying to marshal them, everyone tripping over everyone else with endless queues for each site. It is so crowded that the best staged photo ends up with strangers appearing in it as they dash by.

And, if that wasn’t enough, the Church isn’t one but five separate churches, ,merging together in higgledy-piggledy fashion and run separately by the Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Abyssinian Coptic denominations. Then, there is the fact that much of the church(es) are in semi-darkness, lit by occasional candles and lamps, making photography a nightmare.

So, this has been a difficult visit to write about, and to illustrate – but it has also been a sublime joy, a privilege and an immense emotional and spiritual impact.

Let’s begin with the red limestone slab near the entrance, flanked by ornate candle stands with eight devotional lamps hanging above. This is where the body of Jesus was laid out after crucifixion, in preparation for wrapping Him in a burial shroud.

Then there is the Tomb of Jesus Christ (provided by Joseph of Arimathea). There is always a large queue for entry, which is restricted by the Orthodox priest in charge to a handful of people at a time and then for only a minute or so. The outer chapel uses a piece of the stone that was rolled away from the entrance to the tomb as an altar, the inner chapel, a very small room has space for only three pilgrims at a time. It is lit only by flickering candles, and contains the actual rock tomb, with a marble slab covering the place where Jesus’ body rested. Such is the speed of the pilgrim turnaround that the enormity of the experience only dawns on you some time after you have emerged from the tomb.

Up a steep flight of steps are two more chapels. The Roman Catholic one, which has a vaulted ceiling and arches covered in mosaics, commemorates when Jesus was stripped of his garments, The Greek Orthodox one is ablaze with lamps, candles, embossed silver panels and life-size silver icons.

 

Under its altar is a small hole where the pilgrim can touch the very rock of Golgotha on which Jesus was crucified. The original rock can also be seen through two glass panels – which also show the rock was split apart by the earthquake that occurred when Jesus died.

 

Our own miracle of the day, the Holy Mass, was held in the Crusader chapel and, as usual, co-celebrated by Fathers Mark and Ephraim. Incidentally, I believe that Father Mark is a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, a religious and charitable order.

 

Afterwards, wandering through the complex we saw various religious ceremonies and I was particularly struck by the powerful rhythmic chanting of the Oxthodox priests.

Then we walked for 20 minutes or so in the warm sunshine to the other wide of the walled Old City to visit St. Anne’s Church, which is just inside the Muslim Quarter.

 

St. Anne was the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ruins of a Byzantine church of the fifth century have been unearthed and legend has it that the church was built over Joachim and Ann’s house. The present church was built in the twelfth century by the Crusaders and is the best-preserved Crusader church in Jerusalem. It is simple and modestly decorated but famous for its acoustics; when I visited a group of pilgrims was singing ‘Amazing Grace’ and the sound seemed to fill the church.   

 

Below, in the crypt is the supposed remains of Joachim and Anne’s house where Mary was born and contains a rather fetching painting of her.

 

Outside, excavations have unearthed what is believed to be the Pools of Bethesda where Christ healed a sick man (John 5:2-9).

Around midday we began the Stations of the Cross, starting from just inside the Lions Gate and following the route along the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Via Dolorosa, which is a narrow street anyway, was particularly crowded, and often we had to queue at a particular Station until the tour group in front of us completed that Station. Occasionally the shop owners in the street became frustrated with the crowded, slow-moving groups, and urged us to get a move on. It seemed every nationality under the sun was praying and progressing in Jerusalem today – particularly the Russians!   

Our afternoon was free time so we headed for the Western Wall (also known as the ‘Wailing Wall’ although that it is not a particularly polite or charitable description of the prayers offered by the faithful commemorating the destruction of the Holy City).

 

Security was effective but not obsessive or intrusive. Entry was through a checkpoint staffed by security guards who scanned our bags and then waved us through. I collected a free skullcap and joined the people praying at the Wall. Immediately next to the wall were many Orthodox-looking Jews, some wearing tefillin, and there were some Israeli soldiers there too, unarmed, praying earnestly. There were also hordes of tourists, Africans and Asians particularly, clutching their skullcaps and taking photographs. I noticed one African priest, in Roman collar and wearing alarge gilt cross, walk right up to the Wall and thrust his phone in people’s faces, taking close-up photographs. I don’t know what impressed me more: the many devout petitioners and the fervour of their prayers, or the incredible forbearance that they showed in the face of intrusive and insensitive tourists.

Men and women had segregated areas and the women’s area was as busy as the men’s, sometimes busier.

Dome and top of Western Wall

I was surprised by how close the Moslem Dome of the Rock (and the El Aksa Mosque) was to the Western Wall. In fact I was tempted to visit the Dome until I heard it closed at midday, so we returned to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Walking through the Jewish Quarter we saw much archaeological excavations, including a section of city wall built at the time of the First Temple (from 1,000BC). We passed another ancient building which was occupied by Israeli women soldiers undertaking training.

 

 Enough for today...  

Israel – Day Five – Jerusalem

First the exciting news – in a grocer’s shop near our hotel in Jerusalem I discovered a supply of M&M Chocolates. This is a tremendous find for any chocaholic travelling in hot countries; they really are ‘the chocolates that melt in your mouth and not in your hand.’

Today we travelled from Tiberias to Jerusalem, a journey of just over two hours on fast motorways. Again, it was a tale of two parts: first, Galilee was lush, tropical, with bright flowers and fruit trees; then, after an hour, the plantations of date palms slowly gave way to sand, rock and small stunted shrubs as we entered the Judean wilderness.

 

This area was popular with monks back in the fourth to seventh centuries, men who treasured the solitude and the silence. Alas, Persian invaders in the seventh century wiped out the monasteries. Now, apart from the occasional Bedouin camp at the road’s edge, the area is deserted.

We entered Jerusalem by Mount Scopus, enjoying a panoramic view of the city, the golden Dome of the Rock glinting in the bright sunshine. I was reminded of the last time we saw it, at night, just two day earlier, when Fr. Mark read a prayer and played a recording of The Holy City as we drove past Mount Scopus on the way back to Bethlehem. Our pilgrims sang along and the words ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing…’were sung with tremendous fervour and anticipation; a magical moment.

Our first stop was at the Mount of Olives – which no longer has olive trees since the Romans cut them down in the first century. We stopped at the Church of the Paternoster, a small and simple one next to the ruins of an earlier one built by order of Emperor Constantine in the fourth century.

Outside is a grotto where Jesus allegedly taught his Disciples the Paternoster or Our Father, which is displayed on tiled panels in the courtyard and in the church – in more than 60 languages – including, to my great delight, Scottish Gaelic!

Then we walked downhill, along a narrow and steep paved road. This was the route followed by Jesus when he entered Jerusalem to the shouts of Hosanna! and the waving of palm fronds.

 

 An enterprising gentleman with a donkey (ass?) was waiting at the start and I passed him five shekels to pose for a photo.    

Dominus Flevit, which means ‘the Lord cried’is the name of the next church we visited. It’s a small, modern church run by the French Franciscans, built in the shape of a tear drop, commemorating the spot where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. It was built over a seventh century chapel and the immediate area was a burial site between 1,600BC and the fourth century, with an ancient tomb complex visible just before you enter the chapel.  

 

Frs. Mark and Ephraim co-celebrated Mass and at one point the strains of midday prayer drifted in to us from a mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. Appropriately, Fr. Mark commented on the richness of prayer life in the City, with three major faiths all worshipping God in the same place, and sometimes at the same time.

 

The view from the church is simply spectacular, with the Old City spread out before us. In addition to the view of the City, there is a great view of the Jewish Cemetery of Mount Olive, supposedly the largest and holiest in the world, with over 70,000 graves. As we walked past it, we noticed the Jewish custom of visitors leaving small stones (rather than flowers) on the graves.

Our guide discoursed for some time on Jesus’ last journey into Jerusalem, pointing out each location from His entry on Palm Sunday to His crucifixion at Golgotha. Each step of the route can be followed with a fair degree of accuracy and it was illuminating – and moving - to contemplate His last journey through Jerusalem to the cross on Calvary. The guide also explained the mechanics of crucifixion and it is hard to imagine a greater torture.  

 

The Allegro Café of Notre Dame of Jerusalem Centre proved the perfect haven for a quick bite, many nearby eateries being closed as it was the Sabbath. The hotel itself is quite a spectacular building.

The Basilica of the Agony in Gethsemane is also called the Church of All Nations to commemorate the 12 nations that contributed financially to its building. A modern church built upon fourth-century ruins, it contains before the altar an outcrop of rock from the original Byzantine church.

This is believed to be the rock upon which Jesus prayed in His agony. The church is dimly lit, its purple glazing and sombre interior combining to create an atmosphere of sorrow. Like the many other pilgrims, I queued to touch and kiss the rock before the altar and stayed to pray for a few minutes.

Outside, there is a small garden with the remains of the original Garden of Gethsemane. There are a number of olive trees, eight of them very twisted and gnarled, obviously very old, certainly hundreds of years old. While olive trees can live for thousands of years I doubt these particular trees date from Jesus’ time; the Romans would hardly have spared them…but it’s possible I suppose!

We were short of time when we reached St Peter in Gallicantu (meaning ‘cock crowed’ in Latin). This church is supposedly built over the site of Caiaphas’ Palace, the place where Jesus was imprisoned overnight and where Peter denied Him three times, his third denial followed by the crowing of a cock. The conjecture that this particular site is indeed Caiaphas’ Palace is not unanimously agreed on; the earliest church on the site probably belonged to a sixth century Armenian monastery and there is at least one other potential contender site.  



St Peter denies Jesus

 
Nevertheless, it made an interesting visit, with its ancient dungeon (in which Jesus would have been held if it was indeed Caiaphas’s house). Outside, Fr. Mark read the Gospel (John 18: 13-27) and – with absolutely marvellous synchronicity – a cock crowed three separate times during the reading!!!

There was a tremendous view from the church and among the things one could see was the alleged site of the field bought with Judas's 30 pieces of silver, now the site of a Greek Orthadox property.

(Incidentally, avoid the church bookshop; a book priced at NIS60 in Galilee was NIS96 here, and a crucifix was increased from NIS24 to NIS84.)

I had never heard of the Dormition Church before, It commemorates one (of the three) optional ways that the Blessed Virgin is thought to have ended her life on earth; by falling asleep and being taken, body and soul, into Heaven. In the crypt is a statue of the sleeping Virgin, carved from cherry wood and ivory. Above her is a domed cupola adorned with mosaic images of Jesus and six women from the Old Testament.  

On the crypt wall at one end is a painting of Jesus receiving His Mother into Heaven. Amusingly, this shows him as an adult holding a small Virgin in his arms.

Our last visit was to what is allegedly The Upper Room or Last Supper Room (Cenacle). I think I can leave it to the guide book to describe how genuine this relic is…’it can be said with total certainty that this is not the original upper chamber, nor is it likely to be the exact location.’ Interestingly, the room is probably early medieval and even contains a mihrab - the niche on a mosque wall that points to the direction of Mecca. Enough said!

The sightseeing day ended and we went on to our lovely hotel, the Gloria in the Old City, for dinner and a wander in the nearby souk before blogging and bed.