"I presented my back to the scourgers, my cheeks to those who plucked out my beard; I did not shrink from insults and spitting" (Isa. 50:6). The Chapel of the Flagellation commemorates the place where, according to tradition, the scourging of Christ took place. Here in the 12th century the Crusaders built a shrine that, when it fell into Muslim hands, was reduced to a stable and then turned into a weaving mill. The Custody of the Holy Land recovered the site in 1838 thanks to a donation from Duke Maximilian of Bavaria: it restored it and reopened it for worship. In 1929 the chapel was magnificently renovated by architect Barluzzi. Every day pilgrims from all over the world begin the Stations of the Cross starting from here, to retrace the path that led Jesus to Calvary. This week the Franciscan community's Lenten pilgrimages stop at this shrine. The Holy Mass was presided over by Brother Giuseppe Gaffurini, Guardian of the Convent of the Flagellation, and concelebrated by the friars of the Custody. Many religious and pilgrims were present. Br. Alessandro Coniglio meditated in his homily on the events that took place at this place: "We contemplate the Servant experiencing painful opposition from unspecified enemies, suffering the rejection of the man who was naturally supposed to love and seek God." Br ALESSANDRO CONIGLIO, ofm Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Professor - Jerusalem "The dialectic that develops in human history in the face of this God who does not cease to demonstrate his love even when this kind of refusal springs up from man. A refusal that is a mystery, but which perhaps we can somehow try to explain as man's attempt to make himself autonomous from God. Man has received a created freedom, that is, a finite freedom. When man tries to give his freedom an infinite dimension but outside of God, outside of his plan, he sees God as an adversary, as a competitor, and then probably this rejection, this kind of blockage against God, arises. But the Son of God coming from God, in humanity, was able to restore that communion that man had broken." And it is precisely Jesus who, in his search for man, always went to a place not far from Jerusalem, to Bethany, to the home of his closest friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus. The destination of one of the last Lenten pilgrimages, here the friars celebrated two Masses: one at the Tomb of Lazarus at 6:30 a.m. and the other in the church. The morning then continued to the top of the Mount of Olives: to the Chapel of the Ascension and the Shrine of the Pater noster.