From Sunday 22 to Friday 27 February, the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and the Convent of Saint Stephen received the visit of Fr Gerard Francisco Timoner III, Master of the Order of Preachers and Grand Chancellor of the EBAF, accompanied by Fr Pablo Sicouly, socius (assistant) for intellectual life, and Fr Pavel Syssoev, socius for the region.
According to Dominican custom, the purpose of this visit was to meet the brothers personally, to listen to each of them, and to take stock of the convent’s communal, apostolic and academic life. The visitors alternated between individual meetings, community gatherings and working sessions devoted to the scientific mission proper to the École biblique and to the apostolic and religious life of the convent. They also had the opportunity to exchange with the students and researchers present in Jerusalem during this semester.
During this stay, the Master of the Order was also able to meet His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, as well as the Chargé d’Affaires of the Consulate General of France, to whom the EBAF and the convent are structurally linked. These meetings provided an opportunity to discuss the regional situation, prospects for development, and the role of our Dominican institutions in the present context.
On Thursday at midday, a solemn Mass was celebrated in the Basilica of Saint Stephen. In his homily, the Master of the Order commented on the Gospel of the day (Mt 7:7–12), highlighting the filial trust expressed in Christ’s invitation to ask, seek and knock. He related this spiritual attitude to the insight developed by Francis Thompson in the poem The Hound of Heaven (1893), evoking the perseverance of divine grace that pursues the human person even in flight.
This visit offered the brothers the opportunity to present their work, their concerns and their projects, while also allowing the Master of the Order to appreciate more directly the life and mission of this Dominican community committed to the service of biblical scholarship in the heart of Jerusalem. It also made it possible, in accordance with Dominican tradition, to confirm and clarify the mission entrusted by the Order to the brothers of Jerusalem, in the service of the Church, the common good and scholarly research.
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