Rome, February 2000

Prot. N. 089353

The same spirit of gladness that pilgrims through the ages experienced on catching sight of the Holy City, we Franciscans are showing today in welcoming the Holy Father as a pilgrim to the "places" God Himself selected for "pitching His tent" among us, to allow the human person to encounter Him more directly (Jn 1:14; cf. Ex 40:34-35; I K 8:10-13). John Paul II is to undertake a journey which will take him from the traces of the Exodus (Egypt ­ Sinai ­ Nebo) to some of the places especially associated with the Incarnation of the Word of God (Nazareth ­ Bethlehem ­ Jerusalem).

At last our feet are standing at your gates, Jerusalem! (Ps 122:2)

We, as Franciscans, know what a privilege it is to be "facing the Holy City" where, in the Pope's words, "Providence singled out the sons of Francis of Assisi, the saint of poverty, gentleness and peace, to represent Western Christianity alongside our brethren of the Eastern Churches, in giving a genuinely evangelical expression to that authentic Christian desire to guard those places in which our spiritual roots are planted" (Letter of John Paul II on the Pilgrimage connected with the Places of Salvation, 29 June 1999).

Our presence before the Holy City is due to the special attachment the Order has had to the Places of Redemption from the beginning. The first witness we have is a decision of the 1217 General Chapter to send friars for the first time into the "overseas Province" and we may mention in the context the journey made by Francis in 1219, when he met the Sultan Malik al.Kamil at Damietta (Letter of Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre).

From 1291 the Friars Minor took up a more stable presence when they settled in the cities of Acre, Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Antioch, Jaffa (where St Louis IX built them a convent and church in 1252/53) and in Jerusalem (On the Via Dolorosa after the Fifth Station).

Our friars settled in the Mount Sion convent which was built by the Naples royals, Robert and Sancha of Anjou, on the ruins of the basilica of Holy Sion near the Cenaculum. The papal bulls, Gratias agimus and Nuper Carissimae, of Clement VI in 1342 actually date the beginnings of the Custody of the Holy Land.

The long history of an uninterrupted presence in the Holy Places starts from here; a presence, not untroubled at times, marked by the friars' dedication. With the support of Christians the world over, they sought to "redeem" those stones "which formed the setting for the earthly life of the Son of God" and to celebrate the liturgies "in these sacred places where encountering the Divine can be experienced with greater intensity than is usual in the immensity of the cosmos" (John Paul II op.cit.).

The presence of the sons of St Francis is distinguished also by the care it offers the Christian communities which, amid a thousand difficulties, live in these regions. There is their pastoral work and the tangible support they give through education, health services and works of charity. Nor must we forget the welcoming and guiding of pilgrims, who come from all corners of the earth "to contemplate those places where Christ gave His life and regained it in the Resurrection, providing us with the gift of His Spirit" (John Paul II op.cit.).

All these services have furthered dialogue with all of the Christian communities, with the Muslims and with our Jewish brethren.

Today the Successor of Peter undertakes a pilgrimage of peace and dialogue, physically travelling over again the places which "God has filled with His presence once and for all". John Paul II comes to this Land called Holy where the three great monotheistic religions had their origins, in order to show the world, exactly as Francis did, how peaceful dialogue is possible with everybody.

Let the lived experience of this Visit impel us to faithfully fulfill our mandate to carefully guard the places in which God wished to become Man, die and rise for us, and to bear witness to encountering Christ through a life of brotherhood.

The Pope's pilgrimage assembles us all around the Successor of Peter so that we too may follow the course of the Exodus into the Promised Land. Love for Christ, love for his humanity, unites us in the prayer of this Wayfarer, who points out to the world Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life and permits us to proclaim: