Deir Rafat center for believers and Holy Land pilgrims. The façade of the convent church bears the Latin inscription "Reginae Palaestinae", lit. "to the Queen of Palestine", and carries a 6-metre statue of the Virgin Mary. The church ceiling is decorated with a painting showing angels carrying banners with the first words of the Hail Mary prayer in 280 languages. Since 2009, the convent is in the care of the female branch of the Catholic order known as "the Monastic Family of Bethlehem, of the Assumption of the Virgin and of Saint Bruno", called the monastic Sisters of Bethlehem. Deir Rafat Deir
Veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her. The earliest known Marian prayer is the Sub tuum praesidium, or "Beneath Thy Protection", a text for which was rediscovered in 1917 on a papyrus in Egypt dated to c. 250. The papyrus contains the prayer in Greek and is the earliest known reference to the title Theotokos (confirmed by the Council of Ephesus in 431): Beneath your compassion, We take refuge, O Mother of God: do not despise our petitions in time of trouble: