"When coming from Bethany on Palm Sunday, our beloved Lord Jesus Christ came to Bethphage, which is half way between Bethany and the Mount of Olives, where a modest chapel has been built in his honour. He sent two of his disciples to bring an ass and its colt and then, standing on a large rock which can be clearly seen within that church, he mounted the ass and rode to Jerusalem along the Mount of Olives" (Theodorici Libellus on the Holly Places, about 1172 A.D.).
The stone of Bethphage had already been mentioned in the year 870 A.D. by Bernard the Monk who says: "There is shown the rock from which the Lord mounted on to an ass’s colt".
The final mention is made by the Franciscan, Fr. Nicholas Da Poggibonsi in the year 1345, which is as follows;
"In Bethphage there are neither walls or houses, only rocks and a large stone on which Lesus Christ sat when he sent the Apostles for the ass on the "Day of the Olives", or Palm Sunday,"
(Libro d’Oltremare, chapter LXXV)
From Bethphage, where Jesus is said to have climbed on a donkey to begin his descent through the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, thousands of pilgrims come each year from afar and follow the same route on Palm Sunday, singing and chanting praise to their Savior, Jesus Christ.
View of the main altar in the church at Bethphage depicting the triumphal enter to the Temple.
Visited the place?
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