The annual collection to support the work of Franciscans the Holy Land will again be taken up in all parishes worldwide on Good Friday.
The collection – taken up this year on Good Friday, March 29 – helps the Franciscans who staff holy sites in the Holy Land to minister to minister to pilgrims and to provide other services to Christians living there.
Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory has asked Catholics to support this year’s Good Friday Collection to aid Christians in the Holy Land because “in this land a small Christian community survives against all odds.”
Highlighting the fact that that this year marks the 60th anniversary of Pope (now Saint) Paul VI’s historic visit to the Holy Land and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Holy Land collection, the cardinal said support of the Holy Land and its Christian community should be the work of the entire universal Church.
“The Good Friday collection is a bridge between Christians all over the world and the earthly place where God chose to incarnate Himself – where He lived, preached, died and rose again,” Cardinal Gregory said.
Noting that less than 2 percent of the population of the Holy Land is Christian, Cardinal Gregory asked, “can you image if the place where the Church was born would become a land without Christians?”
“The ongoing war in the Holy land these days fills us with dismay and reminds us that even Christ wept over Jerusalem, a city tormented by a lack of peace,” Cardinal Gregory said. “The Christian presence is at risk as many of our brothers and sisters have left the Holy land.”
The Franciscans and the local clergy, the cardinal said, “are constantly engaged in helping the Christian community through pastoral, social, educational and spiritual activities made possible each year thanks to the Good Friday collection … I urge you to remain close to this afflicted land in prayer and in action.”
Since 1974, the Church has taken up a collection to aid the Church and Christian people in the Holy Land that is jointly administered by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Eastern Churches and the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. The monies collected in the annual appeal support seminarians and priests in the Holy Land; offer pastoral, charitable, educational, and social assistance to Christians there; and maintain the sacred sites in the region.
Cardinal Gregory noted that Pope (now Saint) Paul VI established the collection “so that Catholics around the world might show solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land.”
The cardinal called donations to the collection “a demonstration of care and love for the Holy Land” and “a way to make a real difference in the lives of those who are directly affected by the instability in this region.”
To support the Good Friday Holy Land collection, donate at your local parish. To donate on line, visit https://myfranciscan.org
