Today was a free day. We were able to get some much needed rest and extra time for prayer. Nine of our brothers had an amazing opportunity to spend the entire night in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Nick Froehle was one of the nine, and he has this to say about the experience:
As soon as the doors were shut and we were locked in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the night, it sunk in what I had signed up for—9 hours of prayer and no sleep. The most beautiful part of my time was spent in the tomb where Jesus laid and rose from the dead. Because there were so few of us present, each of us had the opportunity to spend an hour in the tomb itself. As I reflected there on how our Lord’s body had laid underneath the marble slabs, and how it was here that he conquered death, I looked up an noticed a Latin inscription on one of the candlesticks: “Resurrexit. Non hic est.” Translated, “He is risen. He is not here.” It is a quotation from the angel in John’s resurrection account, and it struck me how important it is that Jesus is no longer in the tomb, how we are able to encounter our Lord’s passion and death from this side of the Resurrection!
As the night progressed, the periods that I was able to sit and meditate grew shorter as I grew more tired. Eventually taking to walking and praying rosaries, my prayer turned more into an offering of my own small suffering, namely sleep deprivation. The Holy Sepulcre, though shrouded in silence for parts of the night, would periodically come to life as the different churches responsible for its care rang bells, incensed the various altars, and celebrated their liturgies. At least once, the bells ringing to signal a liturgy beginning woke me up from a drowsy reflection, and so I took to walking and praying my rosary once more until the doors opened for us at 4:00. The night was definitely challenging but filled with many graces that I will take with me back home.
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