The Roman Steps at Gallicantu

Today's pilgrimage went from the little grotto at the interfaith church for the burial of St Mary and ended up at the Roman stair that leads up from the Kidron to the old city. It was the day for the Palm Sunday trek. Both beginning and end of the trek was amazingly powerful.

See, the St Mary burial site is right next to the totally ancient cave of Gethsemane, and its incredibly old olive trees. This is the spot where Jesus was arrested. And the Roman Stair is -- yep, you got it -- built by Romans likely in Augustus's time, and goes right by the prison cave that Jesus spent the night after the arrest. His path would have led down from Gethsemane, across the Kidron valley, through the old city of David, and up that stair, en route to Calvary.

I figure that one of the really remarkable parts of this tour is that our guide stops at sites, whips out his bible, and has one of us read a passage that is appropriate for the site. We start getting silly and go into a shopping frenzy over all the cool glitzy things that vendors have -- and wham! there's another bible text to bring us all back into focus -- that we really ARE walking the very steps that Jesus walked.