MARY QUEEN OF PALESTINE

Day 166: October 25

Mary Queen of Palestine, Deir Rafat, Palestine (Holy Land), Israel



Patroness of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, she is located in the Sanctuary located in the city of Dier Rafat, one of the most beautiful places in Israel and about 30 km west of Jerusalem.

Catholics in the Holy Land go on pilgrimage every year, at the end of October, for the liturgical feast dedicated to Mary Queen of Palestine; not only from the parishes of Jaffa, Ramle and Jerusalem, but also from the distant ones of the Galilee and until he was prevented by the Intifada, even from those of the Palestinian territories, especially from Bethlehem and Ramallah

In that valley, in the first half of the 19th century, a small Christian community was established on the large estate purchased by the first Patriarch, after the restoration, Giuseppe Valerga, on which his fourth successor, Patriarch Luigi Barlassina, would begin an extraordinary religious history. On July 15, 1920, during his solemn entry into the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, he consecrated the Diocese to the Virgin, calling it with the title of "Our Lady, Queen of Palestine"; and he wanted a church and a welfare work for young people to be built in honor of Mary in 1925 on the hill of Deir Rafat.

In 1927 Patriarch Luigi Barlassina founded the sanctuary of Our Lady Queen of Palestine in the locality of Rafat near the Palestine village of “Sar’a” صرعا (now disappeared).

It is understood that this name "Queen of Palestine" never had any political connotation, because the whole Holy Land, then under British mandate, was called "Palestine."

The feast in honor of the Queen of Palestine and patroness of the Diocese of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was celebrated for the first time on August 15, 1928 and repeated every year since then until 1971 when, in conjunction with the introduction of the liturgical reform decided by the Second Vatican Council, the feast was moved to October 25.

The ties between the shrine of Rafat and the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher have been so close from the beginning, that at the behest of Patriarch Luigi Barlassina, they have been recognized and institutionalized by Pope St John Paul II, who with a Decree EST QUIDEM NOTUM of January 21, 1994, proclaimed the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady Queen of Palestine, Patroness of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher. An event that since then Knights and Dames have celebrated every year, with special religious functions, in all the Lieutenancies and, in Rome, also with a reception that the Grand Magisterium offers to eminent personalities of the Holy See, the Italian State and the Diplomatic Corps.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"This presence of Mary is connected with her role as Mother of Jesus in souls, as the first cooperator and minister of redemption and sanctification, the first and most precious instrument, the first and chief means of divine union for us."

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, New Jersey, 1997, p. 379)

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