4. VISITOR CENTER

from Annual Report 2018

1. THE SAXUM PROJECT

4.1 Letter from the Visitor Center’s Director

Almudena Romero

Dear friends of Saxum, With the completion of the final phase - the Visitor Center - Saxum has begun a new era. For this reason, I would like to thank the extraordinary generosity of so many people who have believed in Saxum. It is exciting to see how, little by little, we are achieving St. Josemaria and Blessed Alvaro’s dream; a dream that was tirelessly promoted by Mons. Javier Echevarria and now Mons. Fernando Ocariz (the current Prelate of Opus Dei). All of this is becoming a reality thanks to all of you who have contributed.

This year we have lived some thrilling moments. The second Holy Land Dialogues, in February 2018, was a great success. We welcomed two hundred people from over twenty countries that returned home with the knowledge that the Holy Land can change hearts. They were able to follow Christ’s steps on earth by visiting the places where He walked, they attended lectures by top speakers from the Social Trends Institute, and witnessed the transformation that this corner of the world can bring about. Now we are finishing the last details for the Visitor Center inauguration: our touchscreens and the projections of our multimedia tour are almost ready for the opening ceremony in February 2019.

The Emmaus Trail also continues to develop. The local authorities have started to put signage for the trail, and we receive messages from many people who are excited to walk the 18 kilometers between Saxum and Emmaus-Nicopolis.

As always, our team at the Visitor Center is working to welcome pilgrims and local visitors in a better way each day. It is our honor to be able to receive so many people from all over the world. Another piece of exciting news this year was that in September we hosted our first course for tour guides at the Visitor Center. We are convinced, as so many of our donors are, that this is another way in which we can collaborate with the Holy Land’s development and help improve pilgrims’ experience of the Holy Land. To close, I would once again like to thank you all for your generosity and unconditional support. Saxum’s adventure is just beginning and, from Abu Ghosh, we hope that all of our benefactors will be able to come very soon and see this great project that is just as much theirs as it is ours.

Almudena Romero Director, Saxum Visitor Center

4.2 Visitor Center Staff

Almudena Romero DIRECTOR

Manuel Cimadevilla BUSINESS MANAGER Elena McCarthy FACILITY AND PROJECT MANAGER COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT

Paulina Silva Gabriela Kustner

VOLUNTEERS

Noelia Rolón Isabela Lloveras Joanne Gomes Regina Osuna Hazel López Moreno

4.3 Holy Land Dialogues

As we are convinced that Holy Land can transform the hearts of all who come here, Saxum Visitor Center organizes a biennial event called Holy Land Dialogues.

Holy Land Dialogues is a unique pilgrimage that invites people from all over the world to come to the Holy Land. It combines visits to the Holy Places with enriching academic lectures given by experts, contributing to interreligious and intercultural dialogue in the Holy Land.

About Social Trends Institute

The keynote speakers of the HLD lectures are provided by the Social Trends Institute, a center that seeks to make sense of emerging social trends and their effects on contemporary society. The Social Trends Institute is a non-profit research center that offers institutional and financial support to academics of all fields who seek to make sense of emerging social trends and their effects on human communities.

From February 4-11, the Holy Land welcomed 200 people from 20 different countries -such as China, Brazil, Ecuador, Singapore, Belgium, and Honduras- to participate in the second Holy Land Dialogues (HLD).

The participants of the event were divided into six groups of Spanish, English, and French speakers that came from all over the world. During the week, they enjoyed guided visits to all of the Holy Sites and even a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee where they learned local songs.

Participants were able to experience HLD alongside the new members of the board of Saxum Foundation, giving them the chance to share their ideas on how to help Saxum grow.

This year, Saxum welcomed distinguished speakers Melanie Phillips, British journalist and author, and R.R. Reno, editor of U.S.-based First Things magazine. The second Holy Land Dialogues was a great success due not only to all that the pilgrims were able to see and experience, but also because of the new friendships that were formed.

4.4

Further Activities and Communications Department

Saxum hosts first tour guide course

On September 3, 2018, one week before the recess for Jewish holidays began, 58 tour guides gathered in the Saxum Visitor Center for a full-day course on the history and spirituality of the road to Emmaus. Yisca Harani, an Israeli expert among tour guides on the history of Christianity, organized the day’s activities in coordination with Saxum, so that tour guides could get to know this new tool for learning about the Holy Land. At the beginning, Almudena Romero, director of the Visitor Center, welcomed participants, emphasizing that many donors gave to Saxum in order to support professional development courses for tour guides, due to the role they play in helping pilgrims to understand the Holy Places.

“58 tour guides gathered in the Saxum Visitor Center for a full-day course on the history and spirituality of the road to Emmaus”

Henri Gourinard, academic director of the Polis Institute of Jerusalem, then gave a lecture on the theology and geography of the road to Emmaus, providing an overview of the various historical sites thought to be Emmaus. To conclude the morning, staff of the Visitor Center led tours of the Visitor Center in English and Hebrew for the tour guides.

In the afternoon, Javier Pozas, a freelance lecturer in creativity and innovation, led an informative session about Opus Dei and its role in the Saxum project. Finally, Ms. Harani gave a brief explanation of why Jesus’ encounter with the disciples on the way to Emmaus is important to Christians, explaining its historical and theological context. At the end, the guides offered suggestions on how to improve the Visitor Center, coming from their experience with groups of different faiths and backgrounds.

The Saxum Visitor Center hopes that this will only be the first of many courses of professional development for tour guides in the Visitor Center in years to come.

6,600 PILGRIMS CAME THROUGH THE VISITOR CENTER DURING 2018

DURING 2018 WE WELCOMED MORE THAN 6,600 PILGRIMS IN 706 DIFFERENT GROUPS, COMING FROM THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES:

• Spain • United States • Guatemala • Brazil • Mexico • El Salvador • Argentina • Chile • Philippines • Germany • Portugal • Colombia • Uruguay • Ecuador • Australia • United Kingdom • Peru • France • China • Paraguay • Ukraine • Belgium • Italy • Honduras • Czech Republic • Finland • Canada • Ireland • Kenya • Singapore • Venezuela • Denmark • Indonesia • Poland • Costa Rica • Bolivia • Austria • New Zealand • Sweden • Switzerland • South Korea • Malta • Hong Kong • Vietnam • Latvia

After the conclusion of HLD 2018, the operations of the Visitor Center were focused on preparing everything for the official opening of the Visitor Center in February 2019. We launched our new web page, with more information for pilgrims and an online booking system, to make it easier for pilgrims to visit the Visitor Center. We are happy to report that although the facilities of the Visitor Center are not yet complete, we still received a total of 6,580 visitors from all over the world in 2018.

Highlights of visits in 2018:

Jerusalem/the Holy Land - Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Franciscans from the Custody of the Holy Land

USA - St. Josemaria Institute, Chicago

Dr. Scott Hahn, American theologian

The Philos Project, New York City

The Heights School, Washington DC

- Leonine Young Professionals

Forum, Washington DC Spain

Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, Barcelona

Scouts, Albacete Fundación Promoción Social de la Cultura

IESE Business School

Colegio Mayor Olabidea, Pamplona

Others

PAREF Woodrose High School (Philippines) Panamerican University: Guadalajara (Mexico)

We also had the pleasure of receiving many groups of participants this year who were on their way to or from UNIV Congress for university students in Rome, coming from Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Archbishop Pizzaballa visits the Saxum Visitor Center

On Wednesday, June 6, the Saxum Visitor Center received an important visitor: Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The archbishop had previously been at Saxum in November 2016 to preside at the Mass of Thanksgiving for the completion of the construction, which took place during the first Holy Land Dialogues.

The archbishop was accompanied by Msgr. Joaquin Paniello, the Vicar of Opus Dei in Jerusalem, and was given the multimedia tour of the Visitor Center. He enjoyed the interactive screens about the various Holy Sites, commenting on the importance of knowing the history of the Holy Sites well.

After the tour, he was informed about the Friends of Saxum program, which encourages people all over the world to come to the Holy Land. He commented that this land helps people discover

the humanity of Christ, and about Jerusalem’s uniqueness as a city where people from all churches, religions, and nations can meet and live together.

Before he left, he was the first to sign the Visitor Center’s new guestbook, writing that he hopes that many people will be able to encounter Christ through the Visitor Center.

New video series It Happened Here

In 2017, Saxum Foundation signed an agreement with the production company Digito Identitad (Argentina) and Polis: the Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities to produce a series of videos on the events that happened in the Holy Places. These videos explain the role that Jewish faith played in some of these events and their importance to Christianity. In 2018, we launched the following

videos on the Holy Places, often on the day the Church celebrates the corresponding feast: - The Night of Holy Thursday (the Cenacle, Gethsemane, and St. Peter in Gallicantu)

Pentecost (the Cenacle)

The Transfiguration (Mount Tabor) All Saints’ Day (Church of the Beatitudes) Christmas (Bethlehem)

News from the Holy Land to the world

During 2017, we began a campaign of news that shared information about what goes on in the Holy Land, as well as about Jewish feast days, with our followers on social networks and our newsletter. In 2018, we showed how Lent, Holy Week, Christmas, the month of the Rosary, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel are celebrated in the Holy Land.

We also want to keep our readers close to the Jewish festivities, and published articles on how Pesach and Yom Kippur are celebrated in Israel.

First Mass of the feast of St. Josemaria in the Visitor Center

Saturday, June 23 was a joyous occasion for everyone at the Saxum Visitor Center. For the first time, the Mass of the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva (officially celebrated June 26), the founder of Opus Dei, was celebrated in the chapel of the Visitor Center.

The chapel was filled with families from Jerusalem and visiting pilgrims. Before and after the Mass, tours were given of the Saxum Visitor Center, giving many of the local families an opportunity to get to know this new resource about the Holy Places.