On Christmas Day in the afternoon, the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land went to Beth Sahur, to the two shrines, one Greek Orthodox and the other in the care of the Franciscans, that commemorate the event of the apparition of the angels to the shepherds. These are the so-called “peregrinationes”, pilgrimages that the friars have made for centuries to pray in the places where the holy events took place on the same day that commemorates them liturgically.
The group of Franciscans was guided for the first time by Father Stéphane Milovitch, the new Guardian of the convent of Bethlehem, with about twenty friars (the others were still busy in the Christmas services at other sanctuaries). The prayer in the Orthodox grotto started with the Litanies of the saints, followed by reading the gospel of the shepherds (Luke 2, 8-14) in Arabic and in Latin. When the passage in the gospel relates that the angels sang Gloria in excelsis Deo, the friars also started to sing the Gloria and the Gregorian antiphon “Angelus ad pastores”.
The celebration in the Orthodox Shepherds’ Field came to an end with the hymn “Adeste Fideles”.
The friars then went to the Latin Shepherds’ Field where they had to make their way through a large crowd, because on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day the Franciscan shrine is particularly popular with pilgrims who with their “shepherds” come here to celebrate Midnight Mass. Father Arkadius, who is responsible for the shrine, counted sixty-four Masses, including two celebrated by the Filipino community, each with at least five hundred people. The Italian hymn “Tu scendi dalle stelle” (You come down from the stars) introduced the liturgy, which was shorter than the previous one, with the same gospel, this time read in Italian. After the intercessions, the Lord’s Prayer and the blessing, the hymn “Puer natus in Bethlem” concluded the Christmas pilgrimage of the “Friars of the cord”.
FRC
The group of Franciscans was guided for the first time by Father Stéphane Milovitch, the new Guardian of the convent of Bethlehem, with about twenty friars (the others were still busy in the Christmas services at other sanctuaries). The prayer in the Orthodox grotto started with the Litanies of the saints, followed by reading the gospel of the shepherds (Luke 2, 8-14) in Arabic and in Latin. When the passage in the gospel relates that the angels sang Gloria in excelsis Deo, the friars also started to sing the Gloria and the Gregorian antiphon “Angelus ad pastores”.
The celebration in the Orthodox Shepherds’ Field came to an end with the hymn “Adeste Fideles”.
The friars then went to the Latin Shepherds’ Field where they had to make their way through a large crowd, because on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day the Franciscan shrine is particularly popular with pilgrims who with their “shepherds” come here to celebrate Midnight Mass. Father Arkadius, who is responsible for the shrine, counted sixty-four Masses, including two celebrated by the Filipino community, each with at least five hundred people. The Italian hymn “Tu scendi dalle stelle” (You come down from the stars) introduced the liturgy, which was shorter than the previous one, with the same gospel, this time read in Italian. After the intercessions, the Lord’s Prayer and the blessing, the hymn “Puer natus in Bethlem” concluded the Christmas pilgrimage of the “Friars of the cord”.
FRC