PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND

ADDRESS OF PAUL VI
TO THE KING OF JORDAN

4 January 1964

Majesty!

We are most appreciative of your kindness in coming to welcome Us personally on Our arrival in your Kingdom. 

Our visit is a spiritual one, a humble pilgrimage to the sacred places made holy by the Birth, the Life, the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, and by His glorious Resurrection and Ascension. At each of these venerable shrines, We shall pray for that peace which Jesus left to His disciples, that peace which the world cannot give, but which comes from the fulfilment of His commandment: to love one another as He loved us (cfr. Io. 14, 27; 15, 12). 

Your Majesty, We know, ardently desires peace and prosperity for your people, and for all the nations of the world; and We, Peter’s Successor, remember his reference to the Psalms in his first Epistle: «He who would love life, and see good days,... let him turn away from evil and do good, let him seek after peace and pursue it )» (Ps. 23, 13-15). Saint Peter also wrote: «( Honour all men; love the brother-hood; fear God; honour the king» (1 Petr. 11, 17). 

May God grant Our prayer, and that of all men of good will, that, living together in harmony and accord, they may help one another in love and justice, and attain to universal peace in true brotherhood.

*AAS 56 (1964), p.446-447.

Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. II, p.326-327.

L’Osservatore Romano, 11-12.5.1964 p.1.