Jesus prayed among the olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane on his last night before the crucifixion, according to the Gospel.
Two millennia later, the mostly Catholic monks and nuns here on the Mount of Olives who harvest on the terraces facing Jerusalem’s Old City see the intense work as a form of reverence and prayer.
“The olive has a vocation,” said the Rev. Diego Dalla Gassa as he operated a loud modern press to make oil out of just-harvested olives in the Franciscan hermitage next to Gethsemane. “It must be pressed and then we rejoice in the ‘green gold.’”
For the Benedictine sisters just uphill from Gethsemane — which is derived from the words for “oil press” in Aramaic and ancient Hebrew — the harvest is also a form of retreat. They said it’s easy to pray in the beauty of nature — and the company of a sociable kitten accompanying them on a recent morning.
Groups of volunteers ranging from Israelis to Europeans help with picking the olives by hand, catching them in nets spread on the terraces. Many said it’s also a faith experience for them, especially in sight of Jerusalem’s holy sites.
The vast majority of the oil and preserves made on the Mount of Olives are used by the religious communities, both in the kitchen and in church, where oil has sacramental uses.
This October, harvesting olive trees — a symbol of peace since at least the biblical story of Noah’s Ark and the dove that brought an olive branch to it — has carried a new sense of hope.
After two years of war, when the hundreds of centuries-old trees shook in missile attacks, a tenuous ceasefire has been holding in the Holy Land.
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