The Lenten peregrination of the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land to Bethany has the flavour of the resurrection and of life.
On 3 April, halfway through Lent, the Franciscans stopped in the village of the friends of Jesus - Martha, Lazarus and Mary – for their fourth peregrination.
For three times – in the Mass at dawn, in the votive Mass and in the procession to the tomb of Lazarus – the Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus’s friend rang out. That is not all: Martha and Mary, Lazarus’s sisters, also open up to life again in their meeting with Jesus.
“The Lord, with his presence, can make life return, even at the darkest times of our existence,” this year’s preacher, Fra Ulise Zarza, formator at the International Theological Seminary of Jerusalem and lecturer in patristics at the Studium Theologicum Jerosolymitanum.
Bethany is behind the Mount of Olives, on the road that goes down from Jerusalem towards the desert of Judea and Jericho. The biblical name was changed in the Byzantine period to “village of Lazarus” today al-Azariya in Arabic.
At the centre of the village, the church of the Franciscans recalls the house of Martha and Mary and the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, and it was built on the remains of three previous churches. The church was designed by the architect Antonio Barluzzi and was consecrated in April 1954. A few dozen yards away there is the “tomb of Lazarus”, at the time outside the built-up area.
As per tradition, a first Mass was celebrated at 6.30 in the morning in the “Tomb of Lazarus.” The Mass – offered for those who are in painful situations, in particular for Fra Ayman Bathish – was presided over by Fra Alberto J. Pari, Secretary of the Custody of the Holy Land and concelebrated by Don Tomasz Koszarek.
At 7.30 a.m. in the shrine, the Votive Mass, presided over by Fra Piermarco Luciano, vicar of the fraternity of St Saviour, was held. The concelebrants were Fra Eleazar Wroński, guardian of the convent of Bethania and Fra Michael Sarquah, who looks after the shrine.
After the mass, the friars and the faithful who were present reached the Tomb of Lazarus in procession. In front of the entrance, the Gospel which relates the moment of his return to life was proclaimed (John 11,1-45).
In his homily, Fra Ulise concentrated on the topic of the resurrection, in an Easter perspective. The topic was one of those discussed at the Council of Nicaea, in 325, which had the task of establishing a common criterion for the calculation of Easter. The date of the celebration, from the beginning of Christianity, had been different, depending on the calendar, cultural influences or the bond with the Jewish tradition.
The event of the resurrection of Lazarus illuminates the meaning of this topic, which does not only concern practices. “The Lord, with his presence, can make life return again, even at the darkest times in our existence. Jesus arrives too late, humanly speaking, but in this delay he meets Martha to make her progress in the faith. With his arrival and his call, he resuscitates Mary from her state of non-hope and inconsolable grief, while he returns life to Lazarus.”
“Celebrating Easter is celebrating the resurrection and life; it is celebrating Jesus, the Son of God. This is why it was so important for the Fathers to express the unity of the Church is the celebration of Easter. on a single date. It is not just about a liturgical practice or an immemorial tradition: it is rather about celebrating Christ, our Easter, as a single Church.”
The peregrination continued with the traditional visit to the shrines of the Ascension and of the Pater Noster (or Eleona from the name of the building of Byzantine worship on which it was built) on the Mount of Olives.
The route – just over one kilometre – was covered on foot by the friars at least until the end of the last century, going through Bethphage. After the wall of separation was built, which cut the shrine of Bethania out of the area of Jerusalem, the friars go by car and bus, as they have to cover a much greater distance.
The passages of the Gospel related to the shrines were read both in the place of the Ascension and in that which recalls the institution of the Lord’s Prayer.
Marinella Bandini
