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Dominus Flevit the site where "The Lord Wept"

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Going uphill from the Kidron valley towards the Mount of Olives, a small
church stands watch over the city of Jerusalem. It is called "Dominus
Flevit" (The Lord wept) a very suitable place to indicate the location
for the Gospel account of Luke 19, 37-42.

Many beleived that the site of Christ's weeping over Jerusalem was
unmarked until the time of the Crusaders when they started to point out
this site as remembrance of this event. With the withdrawal of the
Crusaders their church fell into ruins. In 1518 a mosque existed on the
site, presumably built by the Turks, but to the locals it was always
considered a madrasah (school). The place was called el Mansouriyeh (the
Triumphant) and also el Khelweh (hermitage). Unable to obtain the ruin
the Franciscans bought a small property on the south side of the path
leading up to the Mount of Olives and built a small church there in
1891.

In 1913 a Miss Mellon built a small house in front of the Franciscan
chapel, and this passed to the Sisters of St. Joseph, who sold it to a
Portuguese lady named De Mello. In 1940 the Benedictine Sisters, in hard
straits, sold a part of the property to the Franciscans. The old
boundary wall was moved to make the division. The Sisters were not
content with the rather poor wall raised during the war, and so the
Franciscans began the building of a more suitable one in 1953. The
foundations struck tombs, and there followed an interesting excavation
(1953-1955) of the whole property led by the late Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti
ofm.

The finds were beyond all expectation. A tomb of the Late Bronze period
gave finds which are important for the civilization of Jerusalem just at
the time of its conquest by the Hebrews. A necropolis used from 136 BC
to 300 AD produced a great amount of material. The necropolis had two
periods each with different styles and cultures. The first, the earlier
is characterized by Kokhim (ovenshaped) tombs running from 185 BC, while
the second is characterized by tombs with an arcosolium belonging to the
3rd and 4th centuries AD. With the Kokhim tombs are closely connected
the sarcophagus and the ossuary; the first cut in hard stone (mizzi)
follow the motifs of classical art, both in structure and subject, in
close artistic relation with the Tombs of the kings and "Herod's" of the
1 cent. AD; the ossuaries, on the other hand in soft stone (kacooley)
follow a local trade technique with architectonic and floral motifs.

On the ossuaries were found many more or less symbol signs (crosses,
tau, Constantinian monograms) and 43 inscriptions (Hebrew, Aramaic,
Greek) incised or traced with charcoal. Of interest is the recurrence of
names common in the New Testament, as Mary, Martha, Philo the Cyrene,
Matthew, Joseph, Jesus. For the religious, historical and artistic value
of these tombs consult Gli scavi del Dominus Flevit by Bagatti and
Milik, Jerusalem, 1968.

A Byzantine monastery was also found: this belonged to the 5th century
together with a small church. This took back the christian piety of the
site to the byzantine period. It was over these runs of the byzantine
epoch that the Franciscans built in 1966 the present church designed by
A. Barluzzi.

From here comes to our minds the indescribable spectacle of that spring
morning, of that brilliant sun climbing up behind Olivet to the crystal
clear sky and enveloping in its light the splendid city stretching over
the opposite hills. The Herodian towers on Mount Sion glowed in the
immaculate whiteness of their marbles; lower down, magnificent palaces
follow one another in many lines like the various flights of steps of a
huge amphitheatre; and finally in the foreground, the Temple, a marvel
of antiquity, the Temple that rose majestically above the Valley of
Kidron enhanced by its hundreds of monolithic columns, by its towers
covered with precious marble, by its celebrated doors of bronze and by
its golden laminae which reflected from every side the beams of the
rising sun. Jesus sees all this; and also He sees what to others is
hidden; He sees the Roman legions advancing from the north, to cast a
trench about that deicidal city; He sees the columns overthrown the
towers hurled down, the palaces smashed to pieces, the Temple consumed
by fire and reduced to such a ruin that no stone upon stone was left. He
sees thousands and thousands of Jews fallen by the sword and famine; He
sees the fugitives scattered abroad among all nations, and His
countenance grows sad, his eyes are full of tears, and from his lips
come words of touching compassion.




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