JUBILARIANS ALL! - Holy Name Province

to the Holy Land” A perfect question for me
since I spend most of my time in the Holy
Land working with people, like the Pope, who
have come here as pilgrims.
My answer was that for every Christian pilgrim
to the Holy Land the culmination of
pilgrimage in this land is the arrival and visit
to the Holy Sepulchre or the Basilica of the
Resurrection. In this Church the Pope was,
like countless pilgrims before him, able to remember
Christ’s crucifixion, death, burial and
resurrection and enter more deeply into these
central mysteries of our salvation.
There were for this visit some moments of
public prayer and words spoken by both the
Holy Father and the Latin Catholic Patriarch
of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Fouad Twal, to
the invited guests. The Pope was welcomed to
the Holy Sepulchre in the traditional Solemn
Entry ceremony by the Franciscan Custos of
the Holy Land, Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa,
O.F.M. And his entry to the Basilica was accompanied
by singing of the Te Deum by the
Franciscans present. The Franciscans have for
more than 600 years represented the interests
of the world’s Catholic population- we are the
“custodians” of the Holy Land – at the Holy
Sepulchre.
These were the parts of the Holy Father’s visit
to the Holy Sepulchre the world and guests inside
would have seen, heard and experienced.
But the most important parts of his visit to this
place, which is arguably the holiest site in all
of the Christian world, were quiet and private.
The Pope not once, but thrice went to pray by
himself- in the empty tomb of Christ, in the
Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and at the place
on Calvary where Jesus died.
He was clearly moved by each of these mo-
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ments of personal prayer. At Calvary he even
broke from the well planned program and
asked, like do hundreds of other pilgrims who
visit each day, to light a candle at the place
where Jesus gave up his life for our redemption.
It was an unexpected gesture, spontaneous
on the Pope’s part, and prompted the
question afterwards as to who would have
paid the normal donation to the Greek Orthodox
sacristan responsible for dispensing the
candles.
When in the normal course of my ministry I
am trying to animate the visit of pilgrims to
the Holy Sepulchre, I always strongly recommend
that, after they have visited the Church,
they take the time to truly experience this holy
place by spending some time in quiet, personal
prayer. Without doing so the time spent in
the Holy Sepulchre is time spent as a tourist.
Including the time for prayer, indeed making
it the priority of a visit to the Holy Sepulchre
as did the Pope, is what makes a real pilgrim’s
experience of this holy place.
Following the Pope’s return to Rome on Friday
those whose job it is to do so began their
analysis of his visit. Those who approached
their analysis from a secular or political viewpoint
gave these visits modest marks. There
were no major gaffs, but also no major milestones
on the road to resolving the serious
conflicts that mark the relationships of peoples
in this part of the world. The Pope’s presence
did serve as a focus on the need to rethink the
ways people here and elsewhere view their
neighbor and relate to them, but only time
will tell what fruits that message bears.
To form an option of Holy Father’s visit to the
Holy Land from this worldly vantage point is
to miss the reason he made this journey. He
came, as he often said, as a pilgrim, represent-