ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE PONTIFICAL MISSION FOR PALESTINE

Monday, 19 January 1970

We are indeed happy that your short stay in the Eternal City has given Us the opportunity of meeting you, Monsignor Nolan, and your co-workers, and of giving renewed assurance of Our deep appreciation of the valuable work that has been done and is being done by the members and benefactors of Pontifical Mission for Palestine and the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.

The land of Palestine is especially dear to us Christians as that which Jesus walked in the days of His earthly life.

And He is again present in that same region today in the persons of all who are “hungry or thirsty or strangers or naked or sick or in prison” (Cfr. Matth. 25: 34) thus laying upon us, as followers of His teaching and worshippers of His Divine Person, the binding duty to minister to Him under that appearance.

Your association has for many years dedicated itself with exemplary generosity and zeal to that service of the Lord.

In His name We thank you for that devotion, and, as an earnest of the reward “prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Cfr. Matth. 25: 44), We bestow upon you and those who share in and assist your work, Our wholehearted Apostolic Benediction.