Travel Photography: Portals – Homes of the Visionaries of Fatima

 

Home of Francisco and Jacinta

Aljustrel. A sleepy hamlet in the outskirts of Fatima. It is the birthplace of the three shepherd children who witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. In this village, one can visit the well-preserved homes of Lucia dos Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

There, you can also find Loca do Cabeço the spot where the Angel of Peace first appeared to the children before the apparition of the Blessed Mother. And in the backyard of Lucia’s house is the Poço do Arneiro (Arneiro’s Well) where the second apparition of the angel, also known as the Angel of Portugal, happened.

I was blessed to have visited Fatima twice and both times I was struck by the solitude and the humbleness of the environs of Aljustrel. Even now with pilgrims around, it remains laid back. How much more must it have been at the time of the apparitions.

Viewing the homes and learning about the lives of the shepherd children, I was struck by a thought: even the small and the lowly can be chosen by God to bring His message to the world. Young and socially insignificant though they were, the children had the courage to speak. And look how far God’s message has reached because of that! About 6 million pilgrims visit the shrine every year because God’s word came through the mouth of babes.

Though the homes were modest and the materials of the doors were rough, I still found them captivating enough to photograph and to paint. For this blog, I chose to feature the door leading to the outer courtyard of the Marto home framing my co-pilgrims caught in a light drizzle.

In Lucia’s house, it was a door facing the street that captured my attention. Plain, unassuming but full of character like the visionary that lived there.

Aljustrel. Fatima. Here the portals of heaven opened so God’s clarion call to mankind for prayer and repentance can pass through.

Travel Photography: Portals – Church of the Holy Sepulcher

 

Portals – doors, gates, archways – have become one of my favorite subjects for my travel photography. For some reason, they fascinate me. I’m intrigued by the mysteries that can be discovered beyond them. Sometimes they tease with a glimpse, a promise of something interesting inside. The allure of others lie in their design, material, uniqueness and the people near them that add a point of interest. Whatever it is, I am drawn to capture them with my lenses.

For this blog, I am featuring a photograph I took at the rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. I was fascinated by the image of a black-garbed man by a bright green door. He seems to be a monk of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the door is one of the entrances to the Deir el-Sultan Monastery.

An interesting fact that I learned during our visit to the Holy Land is that some religious sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem are under the Status Quo, an understanding among religious communities who share possession and responsibility for these holy places.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is one of those under the Status Quo. It is mainly run by the Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Apostolic Church with minor rights given to the Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches.

I had mixed feelings as I walked into the church. Awe, because this was where my Savior was crucified and was buried. Surreal, because it was like a microcosm of the world where different denominations are united in the belief that here is where Jesus spent his last hours but still contentious about their tenets and territories. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is unique because of that. Within its walls are chapels and structures run by the different denominations.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church occupies the rooftop. It is there where we left the crosses we carried for the Via Dolorosa along the streets of Jerusalem. The Ninth Station is located near the entrance to their monastery. That was where I beheld this eye-catching scene of the Monk by the Green Door.

The image was so compelling that I was inspired to also capture it with my paintbrush. I painted a watercolor vignette to preserve the distinctive memory of churches within a church.