Part 4: Barluzzi’s great churches

On tour, there is always a tension between spiritual imperatives and the inevitable elements of tourism. Our Southern Cross Passion Pilgrimage group in September experienced these. Prayer and reflection were important, but so was the shopping because most pilgrims will never return to the Holy Land  and having fun together. Above everything, a pilgrimage must be joyful.

An itinerary in the Holy Land is tightly packed and organised around deadlines to meet bookings for Mass or other events, such as a boatride on the Sea of Galilee. So sometimes there simply is no time to dwell at a place that invites quiet reflection (or, indeed, shopping). The trick is to be prepared. If one already knows a lot about a holy site that is being visited,  particularly its history and scriptural significance  ones,  attention can be diverted to prayer and reflection. Our second day on pilgrimage, in the area around the Sea of Galilee, was one of those packed days. The itinerary included the two sites at Tabgha, Capernaum, a boatride on the Sea of Galilee, Magdala, Yardenit on the Jordan river, the Mount of Beatitudes (where we conveniently stayed), and Mount Tabor.

It used to be quite an adventure to reach the top of Mount Tabor, the traditional site of the transfiguration. Buses cannot navigate the roads hairpin bends, so pilgrims must use taxis. These are now commodious minibuses that handle the sharp curves easily. But just a few years ago, most taxis were sedans in various states of roadworthiness, operated by men of idiosyncratic disposition.

Among those I had previously experienced was the chap who would celebrate every successfully manoeuvered corner (some seemingly with two wheels off the ground) with an emphatic exclamation of hallelujah!. And then there was the slightly sullen but dexterous one-armed driver whose habit of smoking while taking the bends could inspire fevered prayer. For pilgrims, Mount Tabor is a profoundly symbolic place: a pilgrimage is a life changing experience; not necessarily in the way of a sudden epiphany, but certainly as a process. In the Holy Land, the pilgrim is spiritually transfigured.

And if the metaphor and the idea of Jesus being in the company of Moses and Elijah is not enough, there is also the impressive architecture. The church on Mount Tabor, like several in the Holy Land we would visit, was built by the Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi (1884-1960). Barluzzi came from a Roman family with long connections of working in the Vatican. His grandfather was an architect whose job it was to maintain St Peters basilica.

Antonio himself showed an early talent for architecture, and studied the art before hearing the call to the priesthood as a Franciscan friar. So he went to Jerusalem to discern his vocation (after a brief stint in the seminary, he would decided against the priesthood). While he was working on a hospital for the Italian Missionary Society there, the Franciscan custodian of the Holy Land asked him to draw up plans for a church on Mount Tabor. Barluzzi submitted these, but then was called back to Italy to fight in World War I.

As a soldier, he was part of a regiment that helped defeat the Ottomans in Palestine. After his regiment marched into Jerusalem, the new custodian, Fr Ferdinando Diotallevi OFM, called on Barluzzi, the pre-war plans for the church on Mount Tabor in hand.

Fr Diotallevi asked Barluzzi to finally build that church, and added the commission for a church in Jerusalems Garden of Gethsemane. Barluzzi, who initially was intimidated by the scale of the assignment, finished both in 1924. The church of All Nations (so called because of its international funding) probably is his masterpiece. But Barluzzi was just getting started. Among the many churches and other structures he built in the Middle East, our group visited Dominus Flevit on the Mount of Olives, the church of the Visitation in Ein Karem, Shepherds Fields in Bethelehem (all of which were completed in 1954), and the church on the Mount of Beatitudes.

The latter stands next to our hotel, the Beatitudes Hotel run by Italian Franciscan sisters. The church was built in 1937/38, thanks to funding by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. A plaque at the entrance used to commemorate Il Duces largesse. After World War II, however, that association was an embarrassment, so the custodians would cover the plaque with a mat. Still, tour guides would lift the mat, for a bit of a laugh. Eventually, the plaque was wisely removed.

The church is not accurately appointed. Jesus most probably did not preach the beatitudes on top of the bluff. The 4th-century pilgrim Egeria noted, after visiting Tabgha (the site of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes): Near there on a mountain is the cave to which the Saviour climbed and spoke the Beatitudes. In other words, Jesus addressed the crowds from halfway up the mount.

The Southern Cross 2005 pilgrimage tested how that scene might have played out. The spiritual director, Mgr Clifford Stokes, spoke from outside a cave halfway up the mount as we stood at its foot. Despite the distance, we could hear the speaker well. Our group did not repeat the experiment, but was privileged to make a private, after-hours visit to the church of the Beatitudes, at last enjoying some quiet time for prayer and reflection.

The next day, we would leave the lush fields of Galilee and enter the desert.