Today I am taking you to visit the Dominus Flevit Church – The Lord Wept which is located on top of Mount of Olives here in Jerusalem.
Imagine Sunday, the 10th day of Nissan, Circa 30 AD. Jesus is riding a Donkey foal, on his way to enter Jerusalem, just as Zechariah’s prophecy about the advent of the Messiah. People from all over, are greeting Jesus with Palm fronds as we are celebrating today Palm Sunday. When Jesus reaches this point where it is today the Dominus Flevit Church mount Olives, he sees the breathtaking sights of the Temple Mount and Jerusalem at his feet. At this moment Jesus seized by dreadful premonition of the complete destruction of Jerusalem and its people and weep over it. A fairly accurate description of the actual destruction of the Second Temple.
At this point, we have today the Franciscan Dominus Flevit Church Jerusalem. The Church was designed by the famous Italian Architect Antonio Barluzzi and was built between 1953 and 1955. The Dominus Flevit church is built in the shape of a Greek Cross. In order to give the church a unique touch, Barluzzi designed the Dome of the church in the shape of a tear and also added phials on the corners as the women of antiquity used to catch and store tears – Symbolizing Jesus tears as he sees the destruction of Jerusalem.
Now let’s enter the Dominus Flevit church Israel. As you can see, what is unique about this church structure is that the apse is facing to the West instead of to the East. In the western wall there is a large window framing the view like a beautiful landscape painting. Now when a priest is conducting a Mass, he stand in the same direction as Jesus did when he mourned Jerusalem’s fate.
The current church Dominus Flevit Jerusalem stands on the ruins of a 7th-century church. if we look around we can see some mosaics of which still remain and embedded in the floor of the current church.
Below the altar which is facing the Old city there is a mosaic picture of a hen and her chicks echoing Jesus’ worlds:
“….I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Luke 13:34).
Pictures from the Church of Dominus Flevit:
If you want to watch pictures from this place, please click here for our Mount of Olives album!
That’s it for today, and until we meet in my next video, Let’s All Leave the Jerusalem Experience!!!
WE, THE HUMANITY OF THIS EARTH, SHOULD UNITE OURSELVES IN FAITH FOR THE GLORY OF OUR CREATOR AND HEAVENLY FATHER IN CHRIST JESUS, IRRESPECTIVE OF OUR RACE, TRADITION AND RELIGION; ESPECIALLY TO ALL CHRISTIANS, TO EARNESTLY WIN SOULS FOR THE SALVATION OF EVERY HUMAN SOUL AND PREACH THE WORD. FOR THE TIME WILL COME WHEN PEOPLE WILL NO LONGER ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE. (II TIMOTHY 4:3-4)