It was a moving speech the Holy Father gave at the Tomb of Christ, the last stop and climax of his pilgrimage. Bury your sufferings here in the empty Sepulchre, he urged both Palestinians and Israelis, for He who rose from this tomb is your peace. Then, at the Ben Gurion airport, he delivered a final empassioned plea for peace before the Israeli president and prime minister.
It was the Gospel of Jesus Christ that was preached with fervor by Pope Benedict at the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest of the holy places in Jerusalem. And that holy Gospel was echoed with apostolic thunder by the Latin Patriarch, Archbishop Fouad Twal.
Here is the heart of the pope’s message, not just to Catholics, but to the whole world. How significant that he delivered it from the Tomb of the Savior:: “I wish to proclaim anew, to the men and women of our time, the Church’s firm faith that Jesus Christ ‘was crucified, died and was buried,’ and that ‘on the third day he rose from the dead.’ Exalted at the right hand of the Father, he has sent us his Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. Apart from him, whom God has made Lord and Christ, ‘there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we are to be saved,’ the Pope proclaimed. Read the words of the pope and the patriarch here.
