It was Friday evening, the sun had gone down, and the streets were quiet. Too tired to nap after hours of travel, I took a walk, finding the Old City, set within the high walls of centuries of stone and struggle. Not knowing exactly where I was going, I came to a square and then an entrance, dark and drawing. Inside was a dimly lit small structure, adorned like an altar, church-like as it reached to the ceiling. I joined the nearby short line, and while waiting looked up over the small entrance to the picture of Jesus, arms spread, soaring.
Inside, hunching down, I went through an opening into a small cavern. Not knowing if there was a special prayer to be said at this place, I asked blessings for my family. And I asked for peace in our world.
I was at the tomb of Jesus in the Chapel of the Angels within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City in Jerusalem.
Now, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is closed as a virus ravages the world, and as violence endures across the globe.
On this holy day of Easter, during Passover, and as people of all faiths united by goodness, let us join in prayer, in thoughts and hopes, in words and deeds, to bring what we all so desperately need – peace in our world, peace in our time.
State Senator John F. Keenan 