On the morning of Saturday, November 2nd, parishioners and Franciscan friars gathered in Saint Saviour Church to commemorate the memory of their departed brothers, relatives and friends.
Celebrated in Arabic and Latin by the parish priest, Fra Feras Hijazin, this time of recollection and Eucharistic celebration allowed the numerous faithful in attendance to express their faith in the Resurrection.
In his homily, Father Hijazin fervently discussed the hope that should fill every Christian. The atmosphere, then, was not one of sadness but of serene hope.
The entire assembly, holding flowers, then went through the New Gate in procession to the Franciscan cemetery on Mount Zion, where most of the Custody’s friars are buried, and then to the parish cemetery, just a few steps away.
Under the November sun the graves were blessed and, united in prayer, the faithful sang the memory of their departed.
This cemetery pilgrimage is the only pilgrimage in the liturgy of the Franciscans of the Holy Land that is not related to the friars’ itinerant liturgy of the holy places. It is related to a devotion of the Church that calls for visiting cemeteries all over the world, a devotion that was generalized by the Latin (Roman) rite in the fourteenth century.
Celebrated in Arabic and Latin by the parish priest, Fra Feras Hijazin, this time of recollection and Eucharistic celebration allowed the numerous faithful in attendance to express their faith in the Resurrection.
In his homily, Father Hijazin fervently discussed the hope that should fill every Christian. The atmosphere, then, was not one of sadness but of serene hope.
The entire assembly, holding flowers, then went through the New Gate in procession to the Franciscan cemetery on Mount Zion, where most of the Custody’s friars are buried, and then to the parish cemetery, just a few steps away.
Under the November sun the graves were blessed and, united in prayer, the faithful sang the memory of their departed.
This cemetery pilgrimage is the only pilgrimage in the liturgy of the Franciscans of the Holy Land that is not related to the friars’ itinerant liturgy of the holy places. It is related to a devotion of the Church that calls for visiting cemeteries all over the world, a devotion that was generalized by the Latin (Roman) rite in the fourteenth century.