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 annual collection – taken up this year on Good Friday, April 7 – 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 the collection “for the past 49 years has provided spiritual and material support to Christians living in and working in the land where Jesus walked.”
“Christians in the Holy Land are valiantly keeping the faith that was handed on to them by the Apostles,” Cardinal Gregory said in a video message. “A Christian presence has always remained in the Holy Land since the beginning of the Church.”
He added there is “a great importance of Christians continuing to pray and work in the Holy Land.”
Cardinal Gregory said that thanks to donations to the collection, “our sisters and brothers have been able to do so much good,” including maintain parishes, supporting grammar and high schools, rehabilitation apartments in the old city of Jerusalem, sheltering children at risk of domestic violence and preserving about 80 shrines and holy sites from the life of Jesus, the Apostles and the prophets.
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 on Good Friday at your local parish. To donate on line, visit https://myfranciscan.org/donation-page-pontifical-good-friday-collection.
