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Holy Land Franciscan Pilgrimage                                                              Visit Franciscan Monastery

Fr. David Wathen, O.F.M. giving a tour to pilgrims in Holy Land

Welcome to the land of Jesus! In the name of the Franciscan friars who staff the major shrines, I invite you to come on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Read a letter  from Fr. Pizzaballa (Fr. Custos), the Franciscan Friar with overall responsibility for the care of the Christian shrines in the Holy Land.

My name is Fr. David Wathen. I am a priest-leader and guide for Holy Land pilgrimages. I lived there for more than eight years, serving as a spiritual assistant to pilgrims for most of that time. My home base is now the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, where I am the director of the Pilgrimage Office. But I still spend as much as eight months a year in the Holy Land. I stay in contact by email.

Our Pilgrimage Office offers pilgrimages to the holy Land, as well as to other ‘lands of the bible,” such as Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. I personally am the guide for most of our pilgrimages.

“From earliest times Christians have yearned to visit the Sacred Shrines of the Holy Land - to see the place where Christ was born, where He lived and preached, suffered and died.” Although this was written in the 1939 Crusader’s Almanac, the newsletter of the Franciscan Monastery, it remains true today. Today, pilgrims don’t undergo a sea voyage, and the trip doesn’t take months, as it did in 1889 when the first pilgrimage sponsored by the Commissariat of the Holy Land (affiliated with the Franciscan Monastery) left its berth in New York with two bishops and 37 priests among the 101 pilgrims.

A pilgrimage to the Holy Land provides a unique opportunity for you to deepen your faith and love of our Divine Savior by visiting and praying at the sites made sacred by His life and ministry. As organizers of such pilgrimages for more than 100 years, the Franciscan Monastery Pilgrimage Office is in a privileged position to assist pilgrims who want to make this journey of faith.

We invite you to join us as we recall the history of our salvation by visiting the sites made sacred by God’s Revelation.

Fr. David Wathen, O.F.M.
Director of the Franciscan Monastery Pilgrimage Office