Pope prays at Wailing Wall

Pope Benedict XVI prayed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the ruin of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in the First Century A.D. Just minutes after 10 a.m. in Jerusalem, the pontiff paused at what is known to the world as “Wailing Wall,” where thousands of pious Jews and other pray and await the Messiah, There he a prayer in a crevice of the wall, as did his predecessor John Paul II - another proponent of inter-faith dialogue and peace - which asked for peace in the Holy Land and the Middle East.

The Holy Father was welcomed to the Western Wall—the only remaining retaining wall of the Second Temple—by the Chief Rabbi of Israel and several other rabbis. He was accompanied by the Israeli Minister of Tourism, Stas Misezhnikov, and the Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch. Pope Benedict XVI read Psalm 120 in Latin and then placed his prayer written on a small scroll in the Western Wall.

The full prayer reads:

God of all the ages,

on my visit to Jerusalem, the "City of Peace",

spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike,

I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations,

the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world.

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft;

send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East,

upon the entire human family;

stir the hearts of all who call upon your name,

to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.

"The Lord is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul that seeks him!”