Spring has arrived – longer days and shorter nights, sunshine and rain, warmer but not yet warm, and still cold some days!  Signs of new life abound.  This is our equivalent of Northern Hemisphere Easter, and the Church obliges with feast days that offer us Easter opportunities, if you like, out of season.  In August we had Transfiguration and Assumption and the Crowning of Jesus’ Mother, Mary, as Queen of Heaven.  This month there is the dual festival of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and the commemoration of our Lady of Sorrows.

Mary, standing by the cross, suffered intensely with her only begotten Son and united herself as his mother to his sacrifice, consenting with love to the offering of the victim who was born of her, whom she also offered to the eternal Father.  
(Pope Paul VI)

The discovery of The True Cross in Jerusalem is dated to 14 September 320.  On 13 September 335 the churches on Calvary were dedicated and the Cross that St Helena discovered was venerated there the next day.  The annual commemoration of that event has been celebrated since, in praise of the redemption won for us by Christ.

Those who are going on the pilgrimage that Bishop Denis is leading to the Holy Land and to Rome for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop will be following in the footsteps of St Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine: in 313 he accorded Christianity the status of legal religion of the Roman Empire, and desired to be baptised in the River Jordan like Christ.  Whether that happened is unclear, but since that time going to Jerusalem has been a significant aspiration of many Catholics and other Christians too.  

Egeria, a wealthy Spanish woman, made an extensive pilgrimage to the Holy Land (381-384) where she visited the holy sites and observed and recorded for posterity the Liturgies (particularly in Holy Week) in which she participated.   From Egeria’s Itinerary we learn how she enjoyed the cordial reception of local Christians, who met all her needs as a pilgrim, showing her biblical sites, conducting appropriate acts of worship in the spots, escorting her, giving hospitality and advice.  Egeria’s positive experiences are claimed to be indicative of how any pious person visiting the Holy Land at the end of the 4th Century would have been received, and of what would happen today to pilgrims who have the privilege of meeting the local peoples of the Holy Land.

We pray that the Diocesan pilgrims enjoy and are spiritually enriched by their holy journey, and look forward to their accounts of what it is really like in the Holy Land of the early 21st Century.Spring has arrived – longer days and shorter nights, sunshine and rain, warmer but not yet warm, and still cold some days!  Signs of new life abound.  This is our equivalent of Northern Hemisphere Easter, and the Church obliges with feast days that offer us Easter opportunities, if you like, out of season.  In August we had Transfiguration and Assumption and the Crowning of Jesus’ Mother, Mary, as Queen of Heaven.  This month there is the dual festival of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and the commemoration of our Lady of Sorrows.

(Pope Paul VI)

The discovery of The True Cross in Jerusalem is dated to 14 September 320.  On 13 September 335 the churches on Calvary were dedicated and the Cross that St Helena discovered was venerated there the next day.  The annual commemoration of that event has been celebrated since, in praise of the redemption won for us by Christ.

Those who are going on the pilgrimage that Bishop Denis is leading to the Holy Land and to Rome for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop will be following in the footsteps of St Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine: in 313 he accorded Christianity the status of legal religion of the Roman Empire, and desired to be baptised in the River Jordan like Christ.  Whether that happened is unclear, but since that time going to Jerusalem has been a significant aspiration of many Catholics and other Christians too.  

Egeria, a wealthy Spanish woman, made an extensive pilgrimage to the Holy Land (381-384) where she visited the holy sites and observed and recorded for posterity the Liturgies (particularly in Holy Week) in which she participated.   From Egeria’s Itinerary we learn how she enjoyed the cordial reception of local Christians, who met all her needs as a pilgrim, showing her biblical sites, conducting appropriate acts of worship in the spots, escorting her, giving hospitality and advice.  Egeria’s positive experiences are claimed to be indicative of how any pious person visiting the Holy Land at the end of the 4th Century would have been received, and of what would happen today to pilgrims who have the privilege of meeting the local peoples of the Holy Land.

We pray that the Diocesan pilgrims enjoy and are spiritually enriched by their holy journey, and look forward to their accounts of what it is really like in the Holy Land of the early 21st Century.