By Bishop James Conley
I first joined the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in September 2011, when I was still serving as the Auxiliary Bishop of Denver. When I was transferred to Lincoln the following year, I was happy to discover that the Diocese of Lincoln had an active and engaged Council of the Order, thanks to my esteemed predecessor, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who established a Council of the Knights and Dames of the Holy Sepulchre in our diocese.
The mission of the Equestrian Order is to support and strengthen the faith of the Catholic communities living in the Holy Land. We carry out this mission by providing upkeep of the holy shrines of our Catholic faith, especially the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The Order funds the parishes and Catholic schools in the Holy Land, supports the charitable, cultural and social works of the Catholic Church in the region, and works to protect the rights of the Christians who live in the Holy Land.
In addition to offering spiritual and financial support for the Church in the Holy Land, the Equestrian Order also promotes and organizes pilgrimages to the Holy Land. These pilgrimages are led by expert guides, Palestinian Christians who can trace their ancestries back for centuries in the Holy Land. The purpose of these pilgrimages is not only to visit the places where Jesus was conceived and born, where he grew up, taught and ministered, suffered, died, was buried; where he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and where he sent his Holy Spirit which gave birth to the Catholic Church, but also to meet the people of the Holy Land themselves and to express our love and solidarity with them.
I recently had the privilege of going on one such pilgrimage with the members of the Northern Lieutenancy. Our pilgrimage group included couples from Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota and North Dakota. I was joined by the spiritual director of our Lincoln Council, Father Jonathan Haschke, and good priest-friend from Kansas City, Father Richard McDonald. This particular pilgrimage was first scheduled to take place in the fall of 2023, but was postponed three times because of the war in Gaza and the attack of Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.
From the very first day we set foot in the Holy Land, we were struck by how happy people were to see “Christian pilgrims from the west” once again. There has been so much suffering from that terrible war over the past two years, not just the victims of that war in Gaza, but to all the people of the Holy Land who depend upon visitors for their livelihoods – hotels, restaurants, bus drivers, religious goods stores, etc. We were welcomed with such joy and hope. It’s no coincidence, in my opinion, that the current peace agreement in Gaza was struck during this Jubilee Year of grace.
There is an ancient saying that the land of our Lord – the geography, ancient roads, the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee, the ruins of the ancient shrines upon which the current structures are built, make up what some have called “the Fifth Gospel.” The very stones and pathways where Jesus walked, speak to the pilgrim and reveal the truth of the story of salvation, as a kind of “Fifth Gospel.”
For example, on one of the days we were taken by boat out on the Sea of Galilee where we read the passage of how Peter saw the Lord walking on the water and he stepped out of the boat to come to him. That scene came alive for us as we looked out over that very same sea, with the shore towns and villages in the background, the same towns and villages Jesus speaks about in the gospel.
There were many such experiences like that along the way. We began our pilgrimage in Nazareth, at the Basilica of the Annunciation, which was built over the house of Mary and Joseph. One can go down beneath the current level of the modern church to the foundations where you can see the original stones where the house of the Holy Family once existed. It was there that we prayed the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary in the actual spot where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and bear a son, and his name would be Jesus.
From that first day onward, we were able to pray all the mysteries of the rosary at the very places where the mysteries took place. Having a “visual” of the location where those mysteries took place will forever be etched in our memories and imaginations so that praying the rosary will never be the same. Reading the scriptures takes on a whole new meaning once you’ve been to the places where these stories took place.
As I mentioned, we had an excellent Catholic guide, Sahr, and a very talented and skillful bus driver, Eddie, who guided us along the way. They are both from the town of Nazareth where they have raised their families. Sahr has written several books on the history and archeology of his native land, and he was able to recreate for us what these sites might have looked like in Jesus’ day. His deep faith and love of the Holy Land was evident when he explained the history and archeology of the holy places.
One of the high points for me was spending the night – from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. – in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This ancient church was built over the tomb of the Resurrection of Jesus and over the hilltop of Calvary. Throughout the night, we were able to pray in both spots for long periods of time, going from the hill of Calvary down into the tomb of the Resurrection, the tomb that Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy Jew and secret follower of Jesus, had bequeathed to the disciples for his burial place. Interestingly, the first few hours were the hardest for me to stay awake, but during the wee hours of the night I was able to stay wide awake going from Calvary to the tomb and back again, reading and rereading the accounts from the gospels.
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Another high point for me was celebrating Mass on the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of Palestine, Oct. 25. This feast is celebrated every year in the traditional capital of Palestine in Deir Rafat, a small hilltop village between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This is a place where Christians travel from all over the Holy Land to gather each year for a solemn Mass. Because of the war, it had been three years since they have been able to freely travel in such great numbers to Deir Rafat. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch, was the principal celebrant and homilist for the Mass. The Mass was held outside because the crowds were so large. While the Mass was entirely in Arabic, His Eminence, Cardinal Pizzaballa, preached in English. His message was about peace, reconciliation and hope, that the peace agreement in Gaza would hold and that loved ones would soon be reunited. As I was distributing Holy Communion to the crowds, the communicants’ faces spoke of intense suffering for their faith, but also of hope and joy that peace had come at last.
The day before the feast day, Cardinal Pizzaballa had spent the whole day with Vice President J.D. Vance, taking him to the Holy Sepulchre and other biblical sites in Jerusalem. As we were preparing for Mass, I asked His Eminence what he thought. He said he thought “the vice president was a man of deep Catholic faith.” I heard from other sources that J.D. Vance had broken down and wept at the tomb of our Lord.
There is so much more to say, and it will take me months to unpack all the graces. Because our return flight was canceled, we ended up staying an extra day in the Holy Land. By providence, I was able to reroute my trip back to go through Rome for the Jubilee of the World of Education and the proclamation of St. John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church and the co-patron with St. Thomas Aquinas of Catholic education. This was not on my schedule at all just a few weeks before we left for the Holy Land. I was in Rome less than 48 hours, but through another gift, I was able to meet our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, but that’s a story for another column!
