Card. Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem of the Latins, ae a day of fasting and prayer for peace and reconciliation.
“We ask that on Tuesday 17 October everyone make a day of fasting and abstinence, and prayer. Let us organise moments of prayer with Eucharistic adoration and the rosary to the Blessed Virgin. This is the way in which we all come together, in spite of everything, and meet in choral prayer, to deliver to God the Father our thirst for peace, justice and reconciliation. The pain and dismay at what is happening is great.
Once again we find ourselves in the midst of a political and military crisis. We have suddenly been catapulted into a sea of unprecedented violence. The hatred, which we have unfortunately already experienced for too long, will increase even more, and the spiral of violence that follows will create more destruction. Everything seems to speak of death.
“In this moment of pain and dismay,” Card. Pizzaballa concludes – we do not want to remain defenceless. And we cannot let death and its stings be the only word to be heard. That is why we feel the need to pray, to turn our hearts to God the Father. Only in this way will we be able to draw the strength and serenity to live this time, turning to Him, in prayer of intercession, of entreaty, and also of cry”.
