“As the prophet Isaiah recalls: ‘Consider the rock from which you were hewn’ (Is 51:1),” the archbishop wrote.
“The Church spread throughout the world with the preaching of the apostles, and each of us through baptism has become a stone called to remain united to the foundation, which is Christ the Lord, in order to construct a spiritual building. In Jerusalem are our wellsprings, and we want to remain united with the brothers and sisters who continue to testify to the Gospel there.”
Gugerotti said the massive February earthquake in Syria and Turkey — which was felt in Jerusalem — has led to a renewed need for the charity that Christians in the Middle East and the Holy Land provide. Christians in the Holy Land “remain sources of hope by caring for the littlest ones, educating school children and youth, accompanying mothers in difficulty, attending to the elderly and the sick, as well as offering housing projects for new families and creating jobs, so that it is worthwhile continuing to stay in the Places of Salvation.”
Apart from the recent difficulties caused by war and the earthquake, Gugerotti also recalled an incident last month whereby a vandal desecrated an image of Jesus in a Catholic church in Jerusalem.
“That mutilated crucifix invites us to recognize the pain of so many of our brothers and sisters who have seen the bodies of their loved ones tortured under the rubble or hit by bombs,” Gugerotti wrote.
“The precious presence of the Friars of the Custody of the Holy Land not only guarantees the maintenance of the sanctuaries but also safeguards the life of the Christian communities, often tempted to lose their vocation to be Easter people in the lands blessed by the presence of the Redeemer.”
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