Jerusalem Committee

PREPARATION FOR THE JUBILEE IN THE LAND OF JESUS

Graziano Motta

The great Jubilee and the Church of Jerusalem: the significance particular to the event, the expectations (continually growing as the year 2000 approaches) and the preparations - for many aspects already in advanced phase, for others still to take up - are at the center of a pastoral letter which the Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah has just addressed to his diocese but which has a wider interest - those of Israel, of the Palestinian territories, of Jordan and Cyprus - to project itself to all of Christianity. It is not for nothing, by the desire of the Pope, that the Holy Land is, with Rome, the other "pole" of the Jubilee.

Here, in fact, as the Patriarch correctly recalls, «God in His infinite goodness desired that the events of the mystery should happen...among us in Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem....cities in which we live our religious and social daily lives...cities in which many of us were born, live our lives, work, have our family, friends and acquaintances...». Places which have indeed a «global dimension»... for which «they are holy for us and for the whole world, just as our parishes are parishes for us and for the world and thus we are a presence for our Church of Jerusalem and for the Churches of the world». Reflections which introduce in a living way in the letter - it has as its theme and title the «Preparation for the Jubilee of the Year 2000» - every oscillation between these two anxieties of the one soul of the mother Church, conscious of its privilege and of its responsibilities and at the same time open, thoughtful and ready to receive the "sister" Churches which look to her and come to her as pilgrims for this exceptional event.

The preparations have been taken up for some time now, recalls the Patriarch, by civil and religious authorities, by governments of different countries of the Holy Land, especially those of Israel and the Palestinian territories and by the municipalities of Bethlehem and Nazareth, not to mention by the four families of the Church of Jerusalem: Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox (Armenian, Coptic and Syrian) and Protestant, individually and in common; an interecclesial committee has in fact celebrations of an ecumenical character in mind («in one spirit and with one heart», as the participants solemnly proclaimed). In the Catholic Church the assembly of bishops in the Holy Land have instituted a commission presided by Bishop Kamal-Hanna Bathish, who is indeed a member of the central Vatican committee, to work with many organizations and which has begun many diverse initiatives among which the most recent is a Christological week. Recently the Jerusalem committee has been equipped with appropriate offices at the seat of the Latin Patriarch, and with an executive director.

The preparations undertaken by the Franciscan custodian of the Holy Land - the Patriarch Sabbah recalls again - have been intense «to live this event and to permit the diocese to receive the Churches of the world in their pilgrimage to the holy places». Also recalled are the preparations of other religious congregations, «each according to their own ability». In this regard one could also recall, but the many citations would carry us off the track, all the new works and restorations begun and those planned in sanctuaries, reception houses and infrastructures, not to mention the ceremonies, the celebrations, the publications finished and those planned, also in conjunction with special events: they all have a privileged reference to the Jubilee (among these stands out the 150th anniversary of the reconstitution of the diocese by Pope Pius IX's decision in 1847).

But Patriarch Sabbah presses that «every parish enter into the mystery and the grace of the Jubilee» by means not only of the path of the synod - in which the Catholic Church of different rites began two years ago - but also with special plans. To one of these he attributes great importance: the rediscovery on the part of the local faithful of the «value and the sanctity of our holy places» because unfortunately «familiarity, daily worries and habits risk distancing us from the grace which God offer us in them». A rediscovery to be accomplished with suitable pilgrimages organized by schools and parishes.

One chapter of the pastoral letter is dedicated to the reception of pilgrims «as a sign of ecclesial communion open to the world». Sanctuaries and pilgrimage sites in preparation for the event must become, affirms the Patriarch, «places of silence and of prayer» (which unfortunately is not the case in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre). He then calls for special prayers so that the pilgrimage of the Pope «can take place as soon as possible and crown the celebrations of the year 2000». We consider this pilgrimage, he writes, «as the visit of the pastor of the universal Church to Mother Church and to its faithful, an occasion for ecumenical encounter and also for sharing a word of faith, of truth, and of comfort for all the inhabitants of this land».

At the beginning of the conclusion the Patriarch confronts two pulsing thematics: the relationships with Judaism and Islam and the peace process in the Holy Land. «Our joy and our conversion on the occasion of the Jubilee - he affirms - must not isolate us or separate us from the human context in which we live, from our societies and from our peoples. This is therefore an occasion to encourage and promote a frank and objective dialogue (with the other two great monotheistic religions) which enables a knowledge and a reciprocal acquaintance...and to world together for the creation of a new heaven and a new earth by means of a delicate and persevering search for peace and justice in our land».

He admits that it currently does not exist. But he denounces the difficulties and the fears which accompany the daily life around the Holy places, above all in the Palestinian territories: their closures, the arrests and condemnations of persons, the confiscation of lands, the continued Jewish settlement projects, frustration over the stalemate in peace negotiations, the recurrence of violence and extremism. We remember, affirms the Patriarch, turning himself to the great ones of this world that the «unique and particular situation of the Holy Land requires a great sense of responsibility in their initiatives and their actions».

At the seal of the pastoral letter these conclusions: «We pray for our land, that here in Jerusalem with its two peoples and its three religions it might become one family reconciled in justice and in truth, and in this way witness the sanctity of its land....The Jubilee in the Bible is a liberation, a return to liberty for persons and alien lands; now this return cannot be solely the fruit of God's intervention. Regardless of every difficulty we renew our hope in God; he will soon remember His land and will have mercy on us».