Pope’s journey to Holy Land a "Franciscan" pilgrimage
(Vatican Radio) The Holy Land is preparing for the apostolic journey of Pope Francis
next May 24-26. The three-day visit will include events in Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
The Holy Sites in the region are under the care of the Franciscan Custody
of the Holy Land, the province of the Franciscan Order which has been entrusted for
centuries with the task. In many ways, this trip to the Holy Land is another Franciscan
aspect of this papacy.
“The Holy Land was the mission preferred by Saint Francis
– it was ever on his mind – and is therefore the first and principle mission of the
Franciscan Order, and it is entirely fitting therefore in the logic of things that
the Holy Father will follow his visit to Assisi by the visit to the Holy Land,” said
Father David-Maria, Jaeger, OFM.
“It is also connected to the core message
of the Holy Father, namely a return to the Gospel, which was the message of Francis,”
he told Vatican Radio. “[Saint Francis of Assisi] did not establish any kind of new
ideology or religious school, the rule that he dictated to his followers was quite
simply to follow the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Father Jaeger said this
is also the message of Pope Francis.
Pope Francis “is telling us to testify
to the world, not through what he calls a disjointed multitude of doctrines, but through
the one Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said. “And the Holy Land is the first living witness
to that, in a sense, through the genuineness, through the concreteness, through the
historicity of the Gospel, in every sense of the word historicity.”
Listen
to the full interview by Charles Collins with Father Jaeger: