What’s on the table
What your parish will see after Mass - From the land of Christ
This page is for pastors and parish secretaries. After Mass, this is the table in the narthex. Olive-wood religious art from Christian families in Bethlehem and Shepherds’ Field. A nativity. A cross. A rosary. A saint for the house. The Holy Family from the land where Christ was born.
The wood is from pruning. No tree is cut down. The craft is handed down in the workshop, from one generation to the next, in Palestine and the Holy Land.
Ward Qumsieh comes from a native Catholic and Orthodox background. He represents the apostolic tradition of an ancient family whose ancestors have been in the Holy Land for a millennium. The Christian community in Palestine has always loved the saints, the cross, and the holy image. That love is on the table.
There is something small and something large. We accept cash, card, and check, and we also mail items to your doorstep.
Olive wood from Bethlehem and Shepherds’ Field.
People stop for a baptism, a first Communion, a confirmation, Christmas, or a crucifix for a new home.
Nativities
For Advent, and for the home. A cave, a stable, a Holy Family. Catholic families in Bethlehem still carve the scene Saint Francis loved: Christ born among us.
The cross, and the saints
A crucifix for a new home. For pieces that include relics, such as crucifixes, we provide a relic explanation card.
St. Michael. There is something large.
Rosaries
A first rosary for a baptism, first Communion, or confirmation. Olive-wood beads, from the same workshops.
Holy Family
The same Christian families. The same wood. A Holy Family for the wall or the table.
How it is made
The wood is from pruning. No tree is cut down.
Handed down in the workshop.
The olive tree is pruned so it stays alive and keeps bearing fruit. Carvers use those trimmings. The work is slow. A face, a fold of cloth, a star over the cave.
Hand carving Jesus’s face
Olivewood hand crafting
A carver in Beit Sahour, the biblical town of Shepherds’ Field, spent two years on this olive-wood and mother-of-pearl plate of Jerusalem.
For the sacraments, and for the home
Baptism, first Communion, confirmation, Christmas
You choose the weekend
You choose the weekend, or we suggest a few dates. Ward Qumsieh is on site for Saturday vigil and Sunday Masses. If allowed, he speaks for a couple of minutes during the announcements. Bible study with questions is optional and by request. After Mass he is at the table.
Parishes have asked us back. A bishop letter is available for all dioceses.
There is no online shop. Questions pastors ask, or write wardq@theholylands.org.