Fr. Noel Muscat OFM reporting from Jerusalem

On Saturday 5 April, early in the morning, the Archbishop Mgr. Paul Cremona OP, together with the three Franciscan Ministers Provincial, celebrated a solemn Mass in front of the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre, for the 170 Maltese pilgrims who joined him on a diocesan pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The Mass was sung by the Franciscan friars present in the Holy Sepulchre, accompanied by the Custodial organist Fr. Armando Pierucci OFM. The short homily in Maltese dwelt upon the Christian meaning of the resurrection. The Archbishop stressed upon the fact that the cross was not the end of Christ’s mission here on earth, but that the resurrection opened for Him and for us many new possibilities to be reborn anew in God’s own likeness.

After the Mass the pilgrims continued touring the Basilica of the Resurrection, accompanied by their guides and spiritual animators, Frs. John Abela, Twanny Chircop, Marcello Ghirlando and Noel Muscat. At 9.30 am the Archbishop paid a courtesy visit to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Mgr. Michel Sabbah, at the Patriarchate.

The morning was then spent visiting the Old City of Jerusalem, particularly the Bethesda pool, St. Anne’s Church, the Flagellation and Condemnation Churches at the “Studium Biblicum Franciscanum”. The pilgrims then proceeded along the Via Dolorosa.

In the afternoon the pilgrims went to visit the Cenaculum on the Christian Mount Zion, together with the Dormition Abbey. In the Cenaculum they were briefed about the long history of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, which was born exactly on the spot of the Upper Room, in 1335, when King Robert of Anjou and his wife Sancia of Majorca bought the Cenaculum and gave it to the Franciscans as their official headquarters in the Holy Land. It was Pope Clement VI who on 21 November 1342, with the Bull “Gratias agimus” officially proclaimed the Franciscan Friars Minor as the official Custodians of the Holy Land in the name of the Catholic Church. The pilgrims then proceeded to visit the Western Wall and to see the Jews praying on the Shabbat, their holy day of repose.

At 5.30 pm the pilgrims, together with the Archbishop, had a meeting with Fr. Artemio Vitores OFM, Custodial Vicar of the Holy Land. Fr. Artemio presented the Archbishop and Provincials with an illustrated book on the visit to the Holy Land of Pope John Paul II in the year 2000.

On Sunday the pilgrimage will be concluded by a Mass in Emmaus.