Soccer to Build Bridges

Yesterday we went to the cathedral and seminary of the Armenian Orthodox Christians in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City.  We attended Vespers, got a tour of the Cathedral, and then played soccer against some of their seminarians.  The soccer game was fun to watch (and probably even more fun to play in!).  After the game, we enjoyed some coffee and snacks with the Armenian seminarians.  One of their priests gave us a blessing before we left.

The soccer game is another example of an opportunity that wasn’t on the schedule before we arrived in the Holy Land.  Fr. Dennis has been exceptionally good at creating chances for us to encounter the local people here.  It was especially nice to join the Armenians for a few hours because it built a bridge between a group of Catholics and a group of Orthodox.  The Franciscan Catholic friars and the Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks who work at the Holy Sepulcher Church all have this same challenge – to build bridges between each other and to overcome past relations that were, on a good day, stiff, cold, and formal.

The glaring divisions in Christianity as it exists in the Holy Land have been one of the hardest things to come to terms with here.  The pettiness, territorialism, anger, closed doors, closed minds, and closed hearts are disturbing.  There are three Christmases, two Easters, at least three different “types” of Christians running/vying for control of the holiest places on earth, and all of this gives a horrific witness of disunity, division, and discord.

Christ said that “there will be one flock, one shepherd” and prayed that all “may be one,” as Jesus and the Father are one.  We must continue to pray for this.  Amazingly, despite all this disunity, the holy sites and the Holy Land are still beautiful places to pray and encounter Jesus.  But imagine the power of a unified, outward-facing Church in the Holy Land, helping the world experience the inherent natural beauty and supernatural power of these places.  There are signs of hope: as followers of the Pope’s activities will know, relations between denominations on a macro-level have improved in recent years, and the Franciscans at the Holy Sepulcher testify to warmer relations with Greek and Armenian monks than even a few years ago.  The Franciscans themselves who are stationed at the holy sites are models of peace, perseverance, and forbearance.

As for us, our contribution yesterday was the soccer game, and the cookies that followed.  Because of this, we will be a little more open to each other in the future, and a little less irrationally fearful or disdainful.  It’s a small step in getting in touch with our common humanity and our common Savior, but may it be just another step in a series of many.