Just as for the whole of the Church, Lent has begun in the Holy Land as well and we are about to live through this time of grace which precedes Easter. On 22nd February, Ash Wednesday, Franciscans, pilgrims and local Christians gathered around Christ’s empty tomb, in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to celebrate the start of Lent, a period of fasting, penitence and prayer. At the celebration at 6.30 in the morning, presided by fr. Stéphane […]
Freshly arrived from Jerusalem, Rome, Trieste, Warsaw, Madrid, Berlin, and Milan, the 30 members of the Scientific Committee of the Terra Sanca Museum confidently returned to the Parisian convent of the Franciscans, which has become familiar to them. Welcomed by Br. Stéphane—in charge of cultural properties at the Custody—and Béatrix Saule, honorary director general at the Château de Versailles, the members found themselves happily taking up conversations which had been left in abeyance since the last reunion. Soon, however, the […]
“A holy place dedicated exclusively to prayer” can be read on the plaque next to the gate that opens into the Romitaggio of Gethsemane, in Jerusalem. We are at the beginning of the ascent of the Mount of Olives. Just a little above the Basilica of the Agony, the Franciscan friars of the Custody of the Holy Land have reserved a part of the Olive Grove for prayer in solitude, like that of Jesus on the night of Holy Thursday. More […]
