Pope Benedict XVI Visits Regina Pacis Centre for the Handicapped in Jordan

(RV 09 May 09) The Holy Father’s first appointment with the faithful was at the Regina Pacis Centre for the Handicapped in Amman.

The Pope has called his visit a pilgrimage, and he told the faithful gathered at the Queen of Peace Centre that he, like countless pilgrims before him, has to satisfy that profound wish to draw solace from and to venerate the places where Jesus lived, the places which were made holy by his presence.

Dear friends, every one of us is a pilgrim. We are all drawn forward, with purpose, along God’s path. Naturally, then, we tend to look back on life – sometimes with regrets or hurts, often with thanksgiving and appreciation – and we also look ahead – sometimes with trepidation or anxiety, but always with expectation and hope, knowing too that there are others who encourage us along the way.


The Holy Father said he knows that the journeys that have led many of those gathered to meet him at Regina Pacis have been marked by suffering or trial.

Some of you struggle courageously with disabilities, others of you have endured rejection, and some of you are drawn to this place of peace simply for encouragement and support. Of particular importance, I know, is the Centre’s great success in promoting the rightful place of the disabled in society and in ensuring that suitable training and opportunities are provided to facilitate such integration. For this foresight and determination you all deserve great praise and encouragement!


Pope Benedict said while at times it is difficult to find a reason for what appears only as an obstacle to be overcome or even as pain – physical or emotional – to be endured, yet faith and understanding help us to see a horizon beyond our own selves in order to imagine life as God does.

God’s unconditional love, which gives life to every human individual, points to a meaning and purpose for all human life. His is a saving love (cf. Jn 12:32). As Christians profess, it is through the Cross that Jesus in fact draws us into eternal life, and in so doing indicates to us the way ahead – the way of hope which guides every step we take along the way, so that we too become bearers of that hope and charity for others.



The Holy Father told the faithful that, unlike the pilgrims of old, he has come not bearing gifts, but with a simple intention a hope: to pray for the precious gift of unity and peace, most specifically for the Middle East.

Peace for individuals, for parents and children, for communities, peace for Jerusalem, for the Holy Land, for the region, peace for the entire human family; the lasting peace born of justice, integrity and compassion, the peace that arises from humility, forgiveness and the profound desire to live in harmony as one.

“Prayer is hope in action,” said Pope Benedict, “and in fact true reason is contained in prayer: we come into loving contact with the one God, the universal Creator, and in so doing we come to realize the futility of human divisions and prejudices and we sense the wondrous possibilities that open up before us when our hearts are converted to God’s truth, to his design for each of us and our world.”

The Pope had a special message for young people:

Dear young friends, to you in particular I wish to say that standing in your midst I draw strength from God. Your experience of trials, your witness to compassion, and your determination to overcome the obstacles you encounter, encourage me in the belief that suffering can bring about change for the good. In our own trials, and standing alongside others in their struggles, we glimpse the essence of our humanity, we become, as it were, more human. And we come to learn that, on another plane, even hearts hardened by cynicism or injustice or unwillingness to forgive are never beyond the reach of God, can always be opened to a new way of being, a vision of peace.


Exhorting the young people to pray every day for our world, the Holy Father asked them to pray especially for him every day of my pilgrimage; for his own spiritual renewal in the Lord, and for the conversion of hearts to God’s way of forgiveness and solidarity so that his hope – our hope – for unity and peace in the world will bear abundant fruit.