Mujeidel is a place that tells the story of a constant presence of the Franciscan family. A small, silent convent, with a garden made of rocks and plants. A place that preserves the features of a hermitage, and which the guardian, Fr. Fadi Shallufi, carefully preserves. And it is here, a few kilometers from Nazareth, that the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Francesco Ielpo, wanted to celebrate the feast of the Holy Archangels.

The monastery dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel appeared to be an ideal place to gather the faithful of the local community together with the friars of Galilee. And the feast of the Archangels thus became a moment of celebration, to welcome the Custos, of prayer, but also of gestures that indicate the importance of that hermitage for the whole Holy Land. Fr. Ielpo was in fact asked to bless the new gate as a symbol of the continuous work to make that place increasingly accessible to the community, pilgrims and guests who wish to spend some moments in recollection. But for the Custos there was also another concrete gesture before the liturgy, planting an olive tree in the garden of the shrine. A moment also shared by some members of the local Jewish community, with a strongly symbolic meaning, that of planting not only a tree that is the symbol of this land, but also a symbol of peace that sinks its roots into a place shared by different faiths and rises as if looking towards the sky.

The sky was also one of the elements of Ielpo’s homily, in which he recalled the passage from the Gospel of John: "You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." The Custos emphasized that in a time such as today, the sky may seem closed and distant, but the feast of the Archangels also serves to make man understand that God is not distant from history and from each one of us. And in emphasizing the importance of this celebration, Ielpo also highlighted the particular devotion of Saint Francis towards Saint Michael the Archangel. It was precisely during the Lent that he observed between the Feast of the Assumption and that of the Archangels that the Poverello of Assisi received the stigmata on Mount La Verna. And Fr. Custos, during his homily, explained that "contemplating the sky did not mean fleeing from the earth; it meant becoming ever more conformed to Christ Crucified, so as to remain in human history as a lesser brother."