PROVIDENCE — The Pontifical Good Friday Collection, which is taken up in parishes and worldwide on this day, assists the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land in furthering their 800-year ministry of caring for the people and sacred places of the Holy Land.
Last year, funds contributed by the faithful from across the United States and a number of other countries provided for the continued preservation of 54 shrines connected with the life of Jesus and the prophets in the Holy Land, as well as for care and services to many Christians in need who live there.
The collection also supported 29 parishes, four homes for orphans and three academic institutions and helped keep schools open for more than 10,000 pre-K though grade 12 students.
Additionally, the generosity of many last year also supported 120 men preparing to be Christian priests or brothers, helped rehabilitate 80 homes for Christian families, provided senior care facilities in Bethlehem and Nazareth and created 1,500 jobs in the Holy Land for Christians.
The Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land have a unique responsibility in caring for the region’s holy places as well as the Christians living there. Their ministry is dedicated to maintaining a Christian presence in a land that is filled with a majority Islamic and Jewish population.
Friar John Sebastian, OFM, Vice Commissary of the Commissariat of the Holy Land says the Pontifical Good Friday collection adds to the “universal” dimension of our faith.
“Those who contribute stand in solidarity, as instruments of peace, with the church in the Holy Land,” he said.
He noted that the collection helps Franciscans and others to minister in parishes, provide formation and education, build homes and feed the hungry.
“The sacred shrines in the Holy Land are maintained so pilgrims can walk in the footsteps of Jesus,” he said. “And, in these times of war instability, we provide humanitarian aid.”
Locally, the faithful across the Diocese of Providence last year contributed $121,792 to this annual worldwide effort, promoted by the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land at the request of the Holy Father.
Father Robert Perron, director of the diocese’s Office of the Propagation of the Faith, said it is crucial for the faithful to do whatever they can to support the preservation of the faith’s ancient sacred sites and to support the continuance of a Christian presence in the Holy Land.
“It’s such a needed thing to restore these shrines and to keep them open,” Father Perron said. “We are a much bigger church than our local church or our diocesan church, we’re a global church, and Christ came to save all of us.”
“It amazes me that there’s people actually walking there in the Holy Land in the footsteps of Jesus. We need that presence.”
The Pontifical Good Friday Collection will be taken up in parishes on March 30.
