AT THE ORIGIN OF
THE CHRISTIAN CLAIM THE HOLY LAND

Here Eternity Entered History

The historic pilgrimage of John Paul II in the steps of Christ.
A voyage to the roots of a life event which became history.
All the way to us today: "He is our all."

BY ANDREA TORNIELLI

"With inexpressible joy, I thank the Lord for the gift of this visit, to which I had looked forward for many years." With these words on Wednesday,

March 29th, during the General Audience, John Paul II told the faithful about his feelings as he returned from his Jubilee pilgrimage to the Holy Land. "My visit to the various shrines was, in a sense, a return to the roots of our faith." Karol Wojtyla is the second successor of Peter in 2,000 years of Christian history to set foot in the holy places that the apostle had left to come to Rome, the city where he met martyrdom. John Paul II had already been there as a young bishop, in 1963, at the end of the second session of Vatican Council II, and had recounted his impressions in a detailed travel journal, published in the diocesan bulletin of the Diocese of Krakow. But the only comparison possible is with the historic visit made by Paul VI in January 1964, a few months after his election. In essence, leaving aside the changed political conditions and diplomatic reactions, the two trips, in their most authentic meaning, are very similar: Peter's humble successor becomes a pilgrim, and like so many Christians, visits the places to which the story of salvation is indissolubly linked.
John Paul II earnestly desired to make this trip, which represents the apex of his pilgrimages throughout the world. And even more than his homilies and messages, what struck and moved observers was the attachment the Pope revealed to the holy places, his long, suffering prayers on his knees, almost as though he couldn't bear to come away from those humble signs that testify to the mystery of God's intervention in human history through the Incarnation of His Son.
The morning of his departure to the Holy Land, on March 20th, a few minutes before taking off, the Pope came into the press section of the airplane. He wished us a pleasant trip, and when his spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said to him, "Your Holiness, the journalists are all excited about this trip," he answered, "And I'm not?"

March 20th, Mount Nebo
As soon as he arrived in Amman, Jordan, the Pope went up onto Mount Nebo. Here, there is a sanctuary on the spot where, according to ancient tradition, Moses looked out onto the Promised Land. John Paul II did not make a speech but instead said a brief prayer in which he asked God for peace for all the peoples of this region. He then stopped to contemplate for a long time the panorama that had filled Moses' eyes when he arrived on this spot after forty years of wandering in the desert: the Dead Sea, the desert of Judaea, the Jordan River valley, and the mountains of Judaea and Samaria.

March 21st, Amman and Wadi Al-Kharrar
Forty thousand people were in the stadium in Amman to see the Pope. In the countries where Christians are a minority, the presence of Peter's successor is an occasion to come together and to celebrate. Thirty-six years earlier, as he came into Jerusalem, at the time under Jordanian rule, Paul VI had risked being knocked down by the enthusiasm of the throngs crowding along the Way of Sorrows. The Pope had to let himself go and be swept along by the sea of people, under the impotent eyes of the police. At Amman, when the "Popemobile" entered the stadium, the people came over the barricades, surrounded him, and accompanied him along. The heads of Vatican security had some very tense moments, but this was only the innocuous exuberance of the faithful.
During the first homily of his trip, John Paul II recalled God's promise to Abraham and the commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, which reached through time to John the Baptist. This was his concern throughout his journey: to remember the common roots binding Jews and Christians. The promise made to Abraham and sealed by the covenant with Moses was fulfilled in the man whom John baptized in the Jordan. "Jesus is the realization of the promise. His death on the Cross and His Resurrection lead to the definitive victory of life over deathÖ. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. The Risen Christ alone reveals the full meaning of all that happened at the Red Sea and Mount Sinai."
In the afternoon, before leaving for Israel, John Paul II visited the archaeological site of Wadi Al-Kharrar, where most recent studies locate the baptismal place of Christ, which the evangelist John (who, as abbot Giuseppe Ricciotti explains, is more specific about some details than the Synoptic Gospels) places in "Bethany beyond the Jordan." Awaiting the Pope were 2,000 people and a terribly strong wind that could have blown him over. Wojtyla recited a brief prayer that rendered glory to "the Father, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," to "Christ, the Son of God," and "the Holy Spirit, Lord and granter of Life."

March 22nd, Bethlehem
"For two thousand years, generation after generation of Christians has pronounced the name of Bethlehem with deep emotion and joyful gratitude. Like the shepherds and the wise men, we too have come to find the Child, 'wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.' Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which was accomplished here."
The Pope was given a very warm welcome by the Palestinians, and celebrated Mass in Manger Square, repeating the announcement of the birth of Jesus. "The joy announced by the angel is not a thing of the past. It is a joy of todayÖ. We are called to see more clearly that time has meaning because here Eternity entered history and remains with us forever.... Because it is always Christmas in Bethlehem, every day is Christmas in the hearts of ChristiansÖ. The newborn Child," said the Pope in his homily, "defenseless and totally dependent on the care of Mary and Joseph, entrusted to their love, is the world's entire wealth. He is our all! In this Child, we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails." (Bethlehem, in Hebrew, in fact, means "the house of bread.") Karol Wojtyla, in the early afternoon, went down into the Grotto of the Nativity. He prayed for 36 minutes, alone, in front of the spot where Jesus was born.
"Dazzled by the mystery of the Eternal Word made flesh, we leave all fear behind and we become like the angels, glorifying God who gives the world such giftsÖ. O Child of BethlehemÖ as we set forth into the new millennium, heal all our wounds, strengthen our steps, open our hearts and minds to the loving kindness of the heart of our God who visits us like the dawn from on high."

March 23rd, Chapel of the Cenacle in Jerusalem
The day of the visit to the Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem, a gesture of reconciliation with the Jewish people, also began with a celebration in one of the historic spots of salvation: the Cenacle. Mass had not been said in this chapel for almost four and a half centuries. Not even Paul VI was granted this privilege. The Pope concelebrated with his closest collaborators and signed the Letter to Priests for Holy Thursday on the spot where Christ instituted "the only priesthood." "'Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.' This is the 'mystery of faith' that we proclaim in every celebration of the Eucharist. Jesus Christ, the Priest of the new and eternal Covenant, has redeemed the world by His Blood." At the end of Mass, the Pope asked to be left alone, and spent about twenty minutes on his knees, praying.

March 24th, Korazim, the Mount of the Beatitudes
"We sit on this hill like the first disciples, and we listen to Jesus." There were 100,000 young people from all over the world on the hill in Galilee, at

Korazim, where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount. They had gone through every sort of discomfort, including the mud that invaded the clearing where Mass was held. Rain and wind alternated with patches of sun. The view of Lake Tiberias is magnificent, and looking at it one cannot help thinking that it is the same one that Jesus had before His eyes. "In the stillness, we hear His gentle and urgent voice, as gentle as this land itself and as urgent as a call to choose between life and deathÖ'Blessed are you, all you who are poor in spirit, gentle and merciful, you who mourn, who care for what is right, who are pure in heart, who make peace, you who are persecuted! Blessed are you!' But the words of Jesus may seem strange. It is strange that Jesus exalts those whom the world generally regards as weak. He says to them, 'Blessed are you who seem to be losers, because you are the true winners: the kingdom of heaven is yours!' Spoken by Him who is gentle and humble in heart, these words present a challenge that demands a deep and abiding metanoia [conversion] of the spirit, a great change of heart." Within you and around you, the Pope added, there is another voice, "a contradictory voice. It is a voice that says, 'Blessed are the proud and violent, those who prosper at any cost, who are unscrupulous, pitiless, devious, who make war not peace, and persecute those who stand in their way.' Jesus offers a very different message. Not far from this very place, Jesus called His first disciples, as He calls you now."
But John Paul II, almost as though to clear up any misunderstandings, reminded his listeners that "Jesus does not merely speak the Beatitudes. He lives the Beatitudes. He is the Beatitudes. Looking at Him, you will see what it means to be poor in spirit, gentle and mercifulÖ. This is why He has the right to say, 'Come, follow me!' He does not say simply, 'Do what I say.' He says, 'Come, follow me!'Ö You must leave your boats and nets behind, and that is never easyÖ. To be good Christians may seem beyond your strength in today's world. But Jesus does not stand by and leave you alone to face the challenge. He is always with you to transform your weakness into strength. Trust Him when He says, 'My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"
Before returning to Jerusalem, Wojtyla visited the church of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and Peter's house in Capernaum, the village where the Prince of Apostles lived with his brother Andrew.

March 25th, Nazareth
"We are gathered to celebrate the great mystery accomplished here two thousand years ago," an event which "the Evangelist Luke situatesÖ clearly in time and place: 'In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named JosephÖ The virgin's name was Mary.'" The Pope was welcomed with rejoicing in the most Arab city in Israel, in the place where-as Paul VI said on January 5, 1964-"that very simple, very humble, very beautiful appearance" occurred. As soon as he arrived, John Paul II went into the crypt where archaeologists have unearthed Mary's house. These are the stones that heard her say "let it be done," the words that began Christian history. Wojtyla bent down to kiss the inscription Verbum caro hic factum est, carved beneath the altar. Then he laid there a golden rose, his homage to the Virgin, and knelt to pray. But time was running out; upstairs in the basilica, the crowd was waiting, singing the beginning of the Mass of the Annunciation. The Pope got up heavily and was about to leave, but couldn't. He couldn't tear himself away from that place. He walked back and fell back to his knees. In his homily, he proposed to the faithful a parallel between Abraham and Mary: for both of them "the divine promise comes as something completely unexpected. God disrupts the daily course of their lives, overturning its settled rhythms and conventional expectations. For both Abraham and Mary, the promise seems impossible. Abraham's wife Sarah was barren, and Mary is not yet marriedÖ. Like Abraham, Mary is asked to say 'yes' to something that has never happened beforeÖ. Like Abraham, Mary must walk through darkness, in which she must simply trust the One who called her." The Virgin, John Paul II pointed out, "asks not whether the promise is possible, but only how it will be fulfilled: 'How is this to come about, since I am a virgin?'" In Nazareth, the Pope asked Mary to grant "a great renewal of faith in all the children of the Church. A deep renewal of faith; not just as a general attitude of life, but as a conscious and courageous profession of the Creed: Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est." In Nazareth, the Pope entrusted to the Holy Family all the families of the Holy Land and of the world. In the afternoon, back in Jerusalem, the Pope visited Gethsemane, the garden of olives where Jesus wept tears of blood before His Passion began. Here too he prayed, deeply absorbed, on his knees with his head in his hands. In the travel journal he wrote at the end of his pilgrimage in December 1963, Wojtyla reported that he was struck by the age of the olive trees. A guide had told him that some of them were over a thousand years old, and it was not impossible that one of them might have witnessed the prayers and arrest of Jesus. For this reason, the Pope reviewed them one by one, asking the Franciscan friar accompanying him for explanations.

March 26th, the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
The Pope, ill and tired, was not able to travel the Way of Sorrows on foot. He had to go in a small car, similar to a golf cart. He arrived in the late morning at the entrance to the basilica that encompasses what remains of Golgotha and the Sepulcher that held the Savior's body for three days. This is the place that Paul VI in 1964 found the most moving. And the place moved John Paul II as well. "The tomb is empty," he said during the homily of the Mass celebrated right in front of the entrance to the Holy Sepulcher. "It is a silent witness to the central event of human history: the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. For almost two thousand years, the empty tomb has borne witness to the victory of Life over death. With the apostles and evangelists, with the Church of every time and place, we too bear witness and proclaim, 'Christ is risen! Raised from the dead He will never die again; death no longer has power over Him.'"
The Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher is the "Mother of all Churches," and John Paul II, recalling that it holds both Calvary and the empty tomb, said, " The good news of the Resurrection can never be separated from the mystery of the Cross." The Pope recalled for the last time the promises made to Abraham and the Covenant with Moses: "The Resurrection of Jesus is the definitive seal of all God's promises, the birthplace of a new, risen humanity." And he expressed his certainty that the power of the Spirit will give Christians the strength to overcome their divisions. "I urge all the

Church's members to renew their obedience to the Lord's command to take the Gospel to all the ends of the earthÖ. Today, as the unworthy Successor of Peter, I wish to repeat these words as we celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice in this, the most hallowed place on earth. With all of redeemed humanity, I make my own the words that Peter the Fisherman spoke to Christ, the Son of the living God: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.' ChristÛs anÈsti. Jesus Christ is risen! He is truly risen!"
Bent over with great suffering, the Pope before Mass had gone in for a brief moment of prayer in the Sepulcher and had twice kissed the marble slab covering the rock where Jesus' body was laid. But he had not been able to climb the steep stairs leading to Golgotha. Coming out of the basilica, his eyes went to that spot. Then during lunch, Wojtyla told his collaborators that he wanted to go back to the Sepulcher. In a great hurry, the Israeli security police organized the unscheduled stop. John Paul II arrived and laboriously climbed the slippery stairs leading to Calvary. He stopped for a long time in prayer on the site where the cross was raised. "With Mary, Mater dolorosa," he had said during the Angelus, "we stand in the shadow of the Cross and weep with her over the affliction of Jerusalem and over the sins of the world."

UNPUBLISHED 1963: The Bishop's Voyage

We offer here excerpts from the diary kept by the Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in December 1963. The text was translated and spread by the order of minor friars.

Our voyage through the fatherland of our Lord Jesus began in Egypt, in the steps of the road traveled by the Chosen People toward the Promised Land. From the airplane, because of the clear day, that road can be seen: the desert of Egypt from the shores of the Red Sea, the mountains of the Sinai peninsula, then once again the desert without any signs of vegetation. We approach Jerusalem in a broad turn, in the distance appear the mountains of Moab, then we see the Dead Sea, and then land at Jerusalem airport (in the Arab sector). We realized that on the other side of the Jordan River, behind us, was Mount Nebo, from which Moses looked at the Promised Land; probably at the time he could see the oasis around JerichoÖ
From the people of Israel, which settled in Palestine, the Redeemer was born. This fact brought us first to Nazareth in Galilee. The city is located on the slope of the mountain, inhabited mainly by Arabs, even though it is in Israeli territory. The goal of our pilgrimage is above all the Grotto of the Annunciation, in which under the main altar is the inscription, "Hic Verbum caro factum est." The grotto is located on the site of the house where the Virgin Mary was born. Higher up, at about 200 meters, is the second sanctuary of Nazareth, St. Joseph's house, where Jesus was a child, where, after their return from Egypt, He spent 30 years of His life hidden together with Mary and the Protector. A church has been built above the house that belonged to St. Joseph, while above the Grotto of the Annunciation a modern church is under construction, thanks to the offerings of Catholics all over the worldÖ. About 3 km from the Sanctuary of the Nativity is the Church of the Shepherds, a Franciscan sanctuary that commemorates the place where the angels announced to the shepherds the birth of the Son of God. Around Bethlehem, as also elsewhere in Judaea, one can see sheep grazing on the little grass there is, as this is an infertile and inhospitable region. Every once in a while, there comes into my mind the thought that God chose for Himself a truly poor town, in which "His own received Him not."Ö The events connected with Christmas take us from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, to the Temple, on the fortieth day after His birthÖ The area of the Old Testament Temple is a sacred place for Christians, first of all because it was the Temple of the True God, which the Lord Jesus called "His Father's house," and secondly because our Redeemer visited this place various times during is life: on the day of His Presentation, at the age of 12, on many other occasions during His public activity, at the moment of His death on Calvary when the veil that divided the "Holy" from the "Holy of Holies" was rent in two. The Temple of Jerusalem was always present in the life of ChristÖ
At a certain distance from Capernaum is Bethsaida (Julias), the Sanctuary of the Primacy of St. Peter right on the shore of the lake. Here the Lord Jesus said to Peter, "Feed my sheep, feed my lambs." We stopped on the shores and gathered some stones in remembranceÖ
[Now, back in Jerusalem in the Basilica of the Holy SepulcherÖ] The central part of the basilica encloses, under its ample dome, the chapel of the Tomb of the Lord Jesus. On the way from Calvary to the chapel of the Sepulcher, we come to the place where, according to tradition, the Body of Jesus taken down from the cross was anointed before burial. The tomb itself, both the burial chamber and the atrium, are places that we honor as direct witnesses of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This is the foundation for the construction of the spiritual edifice of our faith and hope. Next to it is the chapel that commemorates the meeting of the risen Christ with Mary MagdalenÖ.
In this moment in the history of the Church, during Vatican Council II, the holy places speak to us constantly of the same truth: the truth of the redemption of the world. Every man who has been given the chance to approach this truth more closely should be a witness for God, who in these places pitched His tent in the midst of men.

Pilgrimage is thus an act of homage to the historical nature of Christianity, a message that starts from facts that happened in specific places and times and not from abstract theories, deductions a priori, disembodied proclamations.
(Carlo Maria Martini, Corriere della sera, March 19, 2000)

The Authentic Primacy of Peter
BY GEROLAMO CASTIGLIONI

IIgor Man [an Italian journalist] put it well: "With his humanity, John Paul II has forced Jews to rediscover the figure of Jesus Christ."
I met the Pope in Bethlehem where he indicated to the Palestinian people, who recognize in him a defender of their just cause, the event of Christ as the source of true liberation, and asked them to foster the presence of Christians in the future Palestinian state. Bethlehem, the Pope said, belongs to the culture of all of humanity. Responding to the request of Muslims to have Jerusalem as their capital, John Paul II firmly defended the international role of the city. This is a Pope who is humble and at the same time strong, a Pope open to bringing out the positive in everything he finds along his path, unhesitatingly affirming the event of Christ and the fulfillment of His promises in human history. A man so sure as to be tenderly patient. The Pope on his knees does not transmit an image of weakness, but indicates the stature of the saint who draws all his strength from Christ on the cross. Everyone saw in the Pope a just man.
"Justice is relationship with God, justice is God's plan; so whoever has met Christ does not wait an instant before helping the world to be better, or at least more bearable." (Luigi Giussani) The Pope's authority has been more easily recognized by politicians than by some local religious authorities, because these have sometimes had a more "political" attitude; the former, instead, have had a more "religious" attitude. It happens again just like in Jesus' time.
In these past forty days of the Jubilee Year, John Paul II has led the Church, God's new people, to renew its faithfulness to its origins. From Abraham to Jesus Christ, memory and prophecy have carried the connection of "the people" to its origins all the way through time to our day. The heartfelt plea for unity among Christians, made even stronger by the fact of having been launched from the Holy Sepulcher, was received by all the baptized as a desire for a renewed experience of communion. Even if John Paul II's pilgrimage did not touch Mount Tabor, everyone was able to contemplate the great transfiguration of the splendor of the truth embodied in the life of Peter's successor.
The task of witnessing has been entrusted to all those who saw and heard today.

The Road to Reconciliation

The encounter with the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian authority
BY GIUSEPPE DI FAZIO

Jerusalem, Thursday, March 23rd: in the Tent of Memory, the place where the Israelis remember the six million who died in the Holocaust, another

"wall" came down. John Paul II was there, a Jew among Jews, to pray for the victims of the Shoah. In silence, "because no words are strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Shoah." In the Tent there were also some Polish survivors, including a woman-Edith Tzirer-who was saved in 1945 by just this man who was then the young seminarian Karol Wojtyla. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said, "Here, right now, time seems to have stopped. This moment contains 2,000 years of history, whose weight has been too heavy to bear."
Despite the Jewish prejudices before the meeting and Israeli requests to the Vatican for further gestures of deploration of past silence, Barak, in the place most sacred to the memory of contemporary Jews, admitted, "When the darkness of Nazism descended and my people were taken from all over Christian Europe to the crematory ovens and gas chambers, it seemed that no one could place any more faith in God or man. From the depths of that 'long night of the Shoah,' we saw some glimmers of light, shining like beams in the total darkness around us. These were the just among the Gentiles, most of them children of the Christian faith, who in secret risked their lives to save the lives of others." And, referring to John Paul II, the premier added, "He has done more than any other to bring about an historic change in the Church's attitude toward the Jewish people." Roberto Bonfil, historian of Judaism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, confided in us, "John Paul II has brought about a revolution; he is truly a great pope, of the stature of Gregory the Great. Now we all should avoid vindication of the past and look rather to the present and the future."
When, on Sunday March 26th, John Paul II prayed like a Jew and put his note-the fituch-in the crack of the Wailing Wall with his request for forgiveness and the commitment to "a genuine brotherhood with the People of the Covenant," the hearts of the Israelis opened definitively to the old and great Pope of the Church of Rome. This was the last step in a process of approach between Jews and Catholics that John Paul II had been vigorously pursuing, above all with his visit to Auschwitz in 1979, then with his embrace of his "Jewish brothers" in the synagogue in Rome in 1986, and more recently with the agreement between the Holy See and Israel in 1993 and the request for forgiveness made publicly to the Jews this past March 12th.
But on his trip to the Holy Land, John Paul II was also a Palestinian among the Palestinians. And this is perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of his pilgrimage. "The Holy Father," the Rector of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, Federico Manns, told us, "has had the wisdom and courage of Solomon." In all the public appearances with the Israeli authorities, the Pope never failed to emphasize that peace cannot exist without justice because, as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, remarked, "still today in the Holy City, Israelis and Palestinians do not enjoy the same civil rights."
In Bethlehem, March 22nd, visiting the auto-nomous territories, the pontiff openly supported the right of Palestinians to have a homeland and full rights. "No one can ignore how much your people," he said, "has suffered in the last decades. Your torment is before the eyes of the world. And it has lasted too long." These words are balm for Arafat's soul, and for all his countrymen, engaged in negotiations that are still long and difficult. But the Pope wanted also to draw the world's attention to the question of the refugees. For this reason, he visited the camp of Deheisha, where he launched an appeal to the international community to rediscover "the political will to face this challenge" and give proof of "a greater solidarity." "The Pope's words," explained Sobhy Makhoul, professor at the Catholic University in Bethlehem and descendant of a family exiled in 1948 from the village of Kafar Bir Am, "are a great help in defeating the silence that has fallen over this drama that involves more than three and a half million refugees, scattered among the camps of the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria."
There still remains the knotty problem of Jerusalem. The Vatican has for some time proposed a special internationally guaranteed statute for the Old City. The destiny of the Holy City-contended by Jews (who consider it the undivided capital of Israel) and Palestinians (who call it the eternal capital of the people of Palestine)-divides also the religious heads of the three great monotheistic faiths of the root of Abraham. The Pope has sown a seed of dialogue, inviting Jews, Muslims, and Christians around the same table. Especially on the Islamic side, however, there has been some resistance to the idea of pursuing a common path if Israel does not first renounce its claims to Jerusalem as its capital. But John Paul II, who went as a pilgrim also to the Plain of the Mosques to greet the Great Mufti personally, has not given up in the face of difficulties. And to Jews and Muslims alike, he launched an explicit message: "We must find," he said, "in our respective traditions the wisdom and higher motivation to ensure the triumph of mutual understanding and warm respect." Peace for the "sons of Abraham," in fact, is the condition so that over Israel and over all the Mediterranean the wind of life can start blowing again.