“Oh place! You were transformed so many times before you, His place, became mine, When for the first time He filled you, you were not yet an outer place; you were but His Mother’s womb. How I long to know that the stones I am treading in Nazareth are the same which her feet touched when she was Your only place on earth. Meeting You through the stone touched by the feet of Your Mother! Oh corner of the earth, place in the Holy land – what kind of place are you in me!”
Karol Wojtyla composed these verses in 1965. Archbishop of Krakow, he had visited those Holy Places where he was to return many years afterward, the third Pope after Peter and Paul VI to touch the soil of Jerusalem. Tomorrow, John Paul II will be beatified and the Holy Land is also getting ready to live this moment with the participation and emotion of those who knew him and listened to his words of faith and hope.
“In his company we walked slowly and constantly going from one sanctuary to another, from the memorial of the Shoah to a refugee camp, from paying respects to political and religious leaders, to listening to the cry of the poor, victims of injustices, prisoners of security, slaves of the spiral of violence.” It is with these words that the Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries recalls the Pope, who was here in the year of the Jubilee. From March 20th to 26th, 2000, from the Memorial to Moses on Mount Nebo to the Holy Sepulchre, where he wanted to return “as a surprise” just before the departure.
In those few days, the friars of the Custody met the Holy Father, followed his footsteps and listened to his words. Many of them have contributed, with their writings and articles, to leaving a memory of that trip, including the account written by Brother Arturo Vasaturo in the summer if 2000, for the magazine “La Terra Santa”, in which he described what John Paul’s visit meant for the local Christians.
“The young people of the Holy Land, due to the great religious and political difficulties they encounter every day,” he explained, “often feel deep down in their souls that this land is ‘not for them’. But the Pope was able to make them understand that this land also belongs to them, indeed they are the custodians of a very particular vocation, that of living in the land of Jesus. Speaking to young people about the visit of the Pope, you hear these words repeated over and over again, almost like a refrain: ‘The Pope has raised our heads’, meaning that he made them feel proud to be Christians.”
“O place of the Holy Land, what kind of place are you in me!” And what kind of place in the life of the Holy Land – of its Christians, its custodians, its living stones – does this testimony, the word and the steps of John Paul II occupy! These places have seen how a saint lives. Tomorrow they will accompany him in his beatification.
By Serena Picariello
Karol Wojtyla composed these verses in 1965. Archbishop of Krakow, he had visited those Holy Places where he was to return many years afterward, the third Pope after Peter and Paul VI to touch the soil of Jerusalem. Tomorrow, John Paul II will be beatified and the Holy Land is also getting ready to live this moment with the participation and emotion of those who knew him and listened to his words of faith and hope.
“In his company we walked slowly and constantly going from one sanctuary to another, from the memorial of the Shoah to a refugee camp, from paying respects to political and religious leaders, to listening to the cry of the poor, victims of injustices, prisoners of security, slaves of the spiral of violence.” It is with these words that the Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries recalls the Pope, who was here in the year of the Jubilee. From March 20th to 26th, 2000, from the Memorial to Moses on Mount Nebo to the Holy Sepulchre, where he wanted to return “as a surprise” just before the departure.
In those few days, the friars of the Custody met the Holy Father, followed his footsteps and listened to his words. Many of them have contributed, with their writings and articles, to leaving a memory of that trip, including the account written by Brother Arturo Vasaturo in the summer if 2000, for the magazine “La Terra Santa”, in which he described what John Paul’s visit meant for the local Christians.
“The young people of the Holy Land, due to the great religious and political difficulties they encounter every day,” he explained, “often feel deep down in their souls that this land is ‘not for them’. But the Pope was able to make them understand that this land also belongs to them, indeed they are the custodians of a very particular vocation, that of living in the land of Jesus. Speaking to young people about the visit of the Pope, you hear these words repeated over and over again, almost like a refrain: ‘The Pope has raised our heads’, meaning that he made them feel proud to be Christians.”
“O place of the Holy Land, what kind of place are you in me!” And what kind of place in the life of the Holy Land – of its Christians, its custodians, its living stones – does this testimony, the word and the steps of John Paul II occupy! These places have seen how a saint lives. Tomorrow they will accompany him in his beatification.
By Serena Picariello