March 8 at the Dominus Flevit Shrine began the Franciscans' Lenten pilgrimages. An ancient tradition to keep alive the memory of the Christians of the first centuries: celebrating in the places where the events of the Passion took place. Holy Mass was celebrated by Br. Alberto Pari, Secretary of the Holy Land, and concelebrated by the friars of the Custody. The Dominus Flevit Shrine was built by architect Antonio Barluzzi between 1953-1955 at the site that commemorates the Gospel episode in which Jesus wept over Jerusalem. And Br. Alessandro Coniglio, professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, spoke of the "weeping of a God who became flesh" in his homily. Br ALESSANDRO CONIGLIO, ofm Professor Studium Biblicum Franciscanum - Jerusalem "The God who weeps for us is the God of Jesus Christ, who became man and who shares to the very depths our own human condition, because he is so involved with human history that he cannot be each one of us to the very depths. He does not look on impassively at the miserable condition of sinful man, but he enters history because he has this solicitude for the good of man, to whom he has bound himself by a pact of eternal alliance." Even today, in the face of human history immersed in various situations of sin, God wants to call His children back to Himself, through His weeping. Br ALESSANDRO CONIGLIO, ofm Professor Studium Biblicum Franciscanum - Jerusalem "God weeps for our sin. But our sin takes a thousand different forms. In particular we can think of social sins, we think of war, the various wars in the world, we think of murder, abortion, we think of offenses against human life in general, euthanasia and attacks on the family. We think of all the conditions in which personally as sinners we individually - and then also as a society, we have allowed ourselves to be carried away by sin, instead of turning to God who weeps precisely because he is offended by this sin of ours. Because he wants to call us to himself through his weeping." A Lenten journey that will take Franciscans, pilgrims and local Christians every Wednesday to the Places of the Passion: from Gethsemane to the Shrines of the Flagellation.