“The doors of heaven open to Stephen, the first to be crowned with the glory of the martyrs.” With this antiphon, sung during the recital of the second vespers on 26th December, the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land recalled the protomartyr Stephen in the place where tradition suggests his stoning occurred. The Franciscans go on a peregrination to this site on the day after Christmas, which also always sees great participation by faithful and pilgrims. The Acts […]
The meeting between St Francis and the Sultan of Egypt al-Malek al-Kāmel in 1219, and now taken as a precursor model of interreligious dialogue, has become the subject of a new opera produced by the Custody of the Holy Land and performed for the first time in Lebanon in the form of a concert on 6 November 2021, in the church of S Elias in Beirut and on 7 November in Tripoli in the church of St Marouan, in collaboration […]
In Jerusalem, friars and religious have once again implored peace, and this time they did it by going down and praying the Via Crucis on the traditional route of the Via Dolorosa. The devotion had been suspended since the beginning of the conflict. On Friday 27 October, the moving procession along the 14 stations which mark the route between the Sanctuary of the Flagellation and the Holy Sepulchre took place on a particular day: that chosen by Pope Francis for […]
