Whenever I pass in front of the walls of Jerusalem, I marvel at their splendid beauty: gilded by the sunlight that illuminates the holy sites of the three great monotheistic religions, they invite you to enter the Old City through any of its gates. Within roughly one square kilometer, the walls speak of centuries of history, civilizations, peoples and cultures overlapping and intertwined, some of them now vanished. The enclosure is practically the same as it was in the time of the Jebusites, in the Bronze Age, some two thousand years before Christ: East and West, Asia, Africa and Europe all form part of this place.
Ancient map Jerusalem
There is something of eternity within these walls, declared a World Heritage Site, which hold within them the memory of the bitter hours of the Passion of Jesus Christ and the triumph of His glorious Resurrection. In the words of Benedict XVI, quoted by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Gianbattista Pizzaballa, its walls are a symbol of God’s providential care for the whole human family. In his letter, which he chose to title They Returned to Jerusalem with Great Joy, Pizzaballa invites us to embrace the dream of God called Jerusalem and to take up the task it entails — a costly task that exceeds us because, in his words, the “perfect” city does not exist.
View of the City of Jerusalem
The Cardinal, well acquainted with the difficulties and the historical moment, begins from a realistic and serene analysis in order to speak of hope. He invites Christians, and all those who in some way regard this Land as a point of reference, to lift their gaze beyond the refuge-city, built by man out of fear, and to pause and contemplate the gift-city, the New Jerusalem, described by Saint John, “coming down out of heaven, radiant with the glory of God.” It is about looking to heaven with our feet on the ground and, above all, looking from heaven: looking as God looks at us, and trying to understand His plans here and now.
The Cardinal’s proposal, enormously appealing, invites a qualitative leap that would lead all people of good will to become involved in what Pope Leo XIV describes as the civilization of love, which, in his words, is not a naive utopia but a demanding project, (…) that takes up the decisive task of transforming (…) an interdependence we suffer into a solidarity we desire and choose. (MH 187) Ultimately, he encourages us to move beyond the ethics of duty toward the logic of love, since our freedom only reaches its own fullness when it chooses to love.
Mount of Olives
Throughout the encyclical, the Pope addresses numerous thoroughly current issues and encourages creative work toward building a more human world. Leo XIV calls for concrete actions, each within their own sphere of responsibility: first, he says, to disarm words and relaunch dialogue. Dialogue is an ordinary dimension of human life (…). It means acquiring an attitude that builds bonds of fraternity, made of listening, of sincere gazes, of time devoted to others, even of time spent together that seems “lost.” Because if we experience an authentic encounter with the other — the different one, the foreigner, the migrant — it becomes far harder even to imagine war. (MH 220).
Do not be afraid! The Pope has repeated this in his most recent encounters. There is always time to begin again. And, of course, to return to Jerusalem with great joy, as the Patriarch proposes in his letter.
By Carmen Rodríguez Éyre