The solemnity of the Nativity of St John the Baptist began at the shrine of St. John in the Desert with the First Vespers on 23 June, celebrated every year in the places of the saint’s life, a few kilometres from Jerusalem. The third of the shrines of Ain Karem, after that of the Visitation and of the birth of St John the Baptist, in the hermitage of St. John in the Desert commemorates the place of the Baptist’s childhood […]
The eleven “Martyrs of Damascus” will be declared saints on 20 October in Rome. For this solemn occasion, a gem of faith and art will enter St Peter’s Square, a reliquary which holds a relic of the martyrs, killed out of hatred of the faith in Damascus in 1860 (you can read the whole story here). This work of art was made in Bethlehem in 1926 and was already used for the ceremony of beatification in the same year and […]
On the Sunday closest to 15 November, the feast-day of St Leopold of Babenberg (St Leopold the Pious) and the “King’s Feast” in Belgium, the Custody of the Holy Land celebrated the Mass for Belgium. During the celebration, in the presence of the Consul General of Belgium in Jerusalem, Wilfred Pfeffer, prayers were said in particular for the reigning sovereigns – Philippe and Mathilde – and for the Belgian nation. The country’s official languages - French, German and Flemish – were […]
“I cannot abandon my sheep; I prefer to die with them, if necessary.” On Wednesday 23 August, the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr Francesco Patton ofm inaugurated the Chapel in Cappadocia (Aquila) dedicated to the blessed Salvatore Lilli ofm, martyred in Armenia in 1895. The celebrations Reflection and prayer marked the celebrations which preceded the inauguration of the chapel dedicated to the Blessed Salvatore Lilli ofm, in the Mother Church of St Margaret in Cappadocia, the village in Abruzzo […]
