Pope's Prayer Intentions - March 2019 - Recognition of the Right of Christian Communities

Asia Bibi declared innocent, death sentence overturned after nearly nine years of trial

The Genocide of Christians in the Middle East

Aid to the Church in Need and Iona Institute:

Watch this video and 'wake up' from indifference to persecuted Christians

 

 

(CNA/EWTN News).- A video that shares the testimonies of people who have personally suffered the persecution of Christians in the Middle East is calling on their fellow Christians in the West to “wake up” to the grave crisis facing their brethren.

 

The most important thing that Christians can do for their brethen in Iraq and Syria is to build a courageously Christians society in their own countries, an exiled Iraqi bishop says in his interview.

The two objectives of the short video are to “help people become more aware of the persecution that is taking place in the East” and to “encourage Christians to begin to live a more profound faith with courage,” Sr. Megan María Conway, SHM, told CNA.  
 
Read about the video here.

Francis calls for prayers for persecuted Christians over Pentecost weekend - The Catholic Herald

Pope says faithful should ask Mary to help Catholics in China

Pope Francis has asked Catholics worldwide to show solidarity through their prayers for Catholics in China and for persecuted Christians over the Pentecost weekend. 

The World Day of Prayer for the Church in China is observed each year on the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, May 24, which this year falls on Pentecost. 

Catholics in China invoke Mary, venerated at the Marian Shrine of Sheshan, near Shanghai, each May 24, the Pope noted. 

“We, too, will ask Mary to help Catholics in China always to be credible witnesses of this merciful love among their fellow citizens and to live spiritually united to the rock of Peter, upon whom the Church is built,” he said. 

The Pope also underlined a prayer initiative of the Italian bishops’ conference inviting all Italian dioceses to pray for persecuted Christians on the vigil of Pentecost.

The vigil, which is using the social media hashtag #free2pray, is intended to “remember the many brothers and sisters exiled or killed for the sole reason that they are Christian”, said the Pope. “They are martyrs.” 

The Pope expressed his hope that the prayer vigil will “increase awareness” of the “drama of persecuted Christians in our day” and of religious freedom as an “inalienable human right,” as well as to “bring an end to this unacceptable crime”

From Bishop Tobin of Providence RI – A Call to Month of Prayer and Sacrifice for Persecuted Christians Around the World

In a letter issued this morning by Bishop Thomas Tobin of the diocese of Providence in the USA:

March 2, 2015
Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

“As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. . . . If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it.” (Cf: I Cor 12: 12-26)

These words of St. Paul come quickly to mind these days as we witness the unimaginable suffering that our fellow Christians are enduring around the world – in Iraq and Syria, and in Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea and many other places as well. Every day, it seems, we hear new reports about Christians having their churches, schools and religious artifacts destroyed; we hear about the personal attacks – Christians being kidnapped, raped, tortured, crucified and beheaded, precisely and solely because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

These reports lead us to wonder how one human being could inflict such suffering and pain on another. We are tempted to give into anger, discouragement, fear and revenge. But while we rightly long for justice upon those who perpetrate these atrocities, our Christian Faith also calls us to hope, charity and prayer for those who suffer. As St. Paul teaches, “If one part of the body suffers, all the parts of the body suffer with it.”

With the hope of promoting our awareness of the suffering of our fellow Christians around the world, and to express our spiritual solidarity with them, I am writing to invite all the members of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Providence to undertake a Month of Prayer and Sacrifice for Persecuted Christians. This month coincides approximately with the remainder of the Lenten Season when we prepare to share in the Lord’s suffering and death. We should understand that the Passion of Christ, the Suffering Servant of God, is being lived-out today in the cruel suffering visited upon our brothers and sisters.

I invite all the members of the Church to undertake some personal acts of prayer, sacrifice or charity for our suffering brothers and sisters. Perhaps you could dedicate the Lenten practices you have already begun to this specific intention. Perhaps you could undertake additional prayer, sacrifice or good works for this intention.

The People of the Cross

The icon here depicts the Coptic martyrs of Libya and was created by Egyptian American artist Tony Rezk. It appears on the website for the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles. 

A sermon preached on Ash Wednesday at Caravita, Rome 
by the Revd Marcus Walker, Associate Director of the Anglican Centre, Rome


The people of the cross.

Twenty-one young men, kneeling in the sand, facing the Mediterranean Sea.

Twenty-one young men, wearing orange jump-suits, each with a black-clad butcher behind him.

Twenty-one young men, all about to have their heads sawn off.

And, superimposed over this footage – professionally produced, it seems – are the words “The people of the cross – the followers of the hostile Egyptian church.”

I have not seen this footage. Those who have, talk of the terrible moment when all twenty-one start to be killed, simultaneously. There are hideous screams. This is not a clean death. This is not a quick death. But rising over the screams of pain are the cries of “Ya rabbi Yasou”, “My Lord Jesus.”

The people of the cross.

How true. How sickeningly, gruesomely, true.

Meant as an insult, like the inscription above the cross of Christ, it revealed a truth well beyond the meaning, and the understanding, of the murderers.

The people of the cross.

Not for them a cross of ash on their forehead, but the Way of the Cross itself.

Not for them the solemn reminder that they are dust and to dust they shall return; that reminder was dealt to them by a sword on a beach.

The reality of death; the reality of the cross: that is what today is about.

Remember O Adam, dust you were and to dust you shall return.

Those words will be used on us as we go up to be marked with our ashen cross. As we get marked as People of the Cross. As we thank God that we live this side of the Mediterranean Sea, where the greatest threat we face, today, is that someone might tell us later that we have a mark on our forehead.

We stand here today, possibly hungry after a bit of a fast, or gearing ourselves up for forty days without chocolates or cigarettes or being rude to the mother-in-law. Or maybe we’ve decided to “take something up” for Lent, being nice or going to the gym.

And we call this a season of fasting, and mark ourselves with an ashen cross, and remember that we are but dust, and… go on with our lives almost unchanged from last week.

We are people of the cross, but the cross is a more distant cross for us.

And yet, however weakly, we are indeed people of the cross.

But the cross, of course, is not just a symbol of death, but also the tree of life. When we’re marked with the sign of death and the dust of the grave, we are also being marked with the cross of the resurrection and the cross of our transformation.

This is the remarkable thing about today, and, indeed, the remarkable thing about our faith. We stand, on Ash Wednesday, at the foot of the grave, peering in and seeing our mortality, but from the very dust of that grave we have inscribed on our heads the hope of our immortality.

And the irony is, on this day of fasting and ashing, our readings very clearly flash up the warning signs that this is not enough. Not by any stretch. Rend your hearts and not your garments. Don’t prance about with ash on your heads looking miserable because you’re hungry.

No.

Repent.

That’s the message of today. Turn around.

Because the message of the cross, which seems foolishness to the Jihadists, is not one of death but one of transformed life. To turn, and be turned, slowly into the person God has called us to be; to turn and be turned, slowly, into the nature of God himself – into the nature of Love.

To forgive, and in forgiving, find forgiveness.

Because that is what we are, my friends: forgiving, forgiven, sinners.

And that is where the pain comes for us: to know the times we have wounded others, and to forgive, from the bottom of our hearts, the wounds we have received.

To turn ourselves to face Christ and to turn our hearts to forgive each other. This is the martyr’s crown that we seek to win, as Saint Augustine said to his flock when they expressed disappointment that the age of martyrdom was over. “Your feast day is not indeed in the calendar, but your crown is ready waiting for you”.

This might seem a little weak in the face of the real crowns won by real martyrs in Nigeria and Iraq and Libya and Syria and all across the world.

But this is what they have died for.

When those men cried our “Ya rabbi Yasou”, they were calling to the God of Love; the god of Forgiveness. Calling out because their journey of forgiving and being forgiven, of turning back to their Lord, was transcended by their terrible but heroic end.

Those men on that beach in Libya were not there for war or to convert others, but for jobs. Ordinary economic migrants hoping for a slightly better life, sending money back to their families at home. On that beach, however, they revealed themselves to be extraordinary for not being willing to renounce the God whom they love.

We are asked to open our hearts and let them be torn, but so often that is the harder task.

As we approach the ash today, let us lay in the grave our anger and resentments and feuds and jealousies, and raise from the grave a transformed nature: forgiven, forgiving, and facing Christ.

Amen.

Holy Martyrs of Egypt, pray for us and for your ISIS killers

“The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out to be heard,” said Pope [Francis] . It makes no difference whether they be Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants. They are Christians! Their blood is one and the same. Their blood confesses Christ.''

 As the world struggles to once more comprehend the savagery being inflicted on people through out the Middle East by people with a very warped understanding of the Islamic faith, Pope Francis reminds us all once more of the ecumenism of blood. No matter what our denomination those who die in odium fidei are witnesses for Christ - martyrs in the oldest understanding of the term.
 
Over at Patheos, Elizabeth Scalia names the martyrs who have been killed in the most recent tragedy. The naming and recollection of our martyrs goes right back to the beginning of the church with the account of the martyrdom of St Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles. The recollection of names ensures their memory and that their sacrifice and witness is not forgotten.  
 
Let us ask these new martyrs for their prayers:

+Holy Martyr Milad Makeen Zaky, pray for us, and for the whole world,
+Holy Martyr Abanub Ayad Atiya, pray for your ISIS murderers,
+Holy Martyr Maged Solaimain Shehata, pray for their salvation,
+Holy Martyr Yusuf Shukry Yunan, pray for the release of their all their captives,
+Holy Martyr Kirollos Shokry Fawzy, pray for all in the path of ISIS,
+Holy Martyr Bishoy Astafanus Kamel, pray for the displaced, for those made refugees by ISIS,
+Holy Martyr Somaily Astafanus Kamel, pray for the protection of our Holy Lands and our history,
+Holy Martyr Malak Ibrahim Sinweet, pray for those who act now in resistance against ISIS,
+Holy Martyr Tawadros Yusuf Tawadros, pray for those in immediate danger from forces of evil,
+Holy Martyr Girgis Milad Sinweet, pray for those infected with the virus of hatred and extremism,
+Holy Martyr Mina Fayez Aziz, pray for families being challenged, throughtout the world, by ISIS,
+Holy Martyr Hany Abdelmesih Salib, pray aid workers may draw together, unmolested, to give assistance,
+Holy Martyr Bishoy Adel Khalaf, pray for the targeted clergy and religious of the Near East churches,
+Holy Martyr Samuel Alham Wilson, pray for all people of good will, in every religion, every nation,
+Holy Martyr Whose name we do not know — you “Worker from Awr village” — pray for those in leadership, whose names we know all too well, that their motives may be purified of political intrigue, and for their salvation,
+Holy Martyr Ezat Bishri Naseef, pray for Jews, throughout the world, chosen of God and so despised,
+Holy Martyr Loqa Nagaty, pray for the “two lungs” of Christianity, East and West, to breath together,
+Holy Martyr Gaber Munir Adly, pray for the illumination of that which is All-Good,
+Holy Martyr Esam Badir Samir, pray that in beholding it, we will wish to serve it,
+Holy Martyr Malak Farag Abram, pray for the generation in power, that their egos may be put aside and their hearts might be opened to the Way, the Truth and the Life,
+Holy Martyr Sameh Salah Faruq, pray for the generations to come. 

O New Martyrs, through a malevolent force as old as Eden you now number among the ancient holy ones; keep us particularly in your prayers, as once again we are focused on the mysterious lands where humanity first came into being, and into knowing, and where all will finally be revealed. Pray that we may put aside all that is irrelevant to the moment and, looking forever to the East, prepare our spirits for the engagements into which we may be called, whether we live amid these places of ancient roads and portals, or in the most modern of dwellings. 

Mary, the God-bearer, pray for us,
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us,
Saint John the Forerunner, pray for us,
All Holy Men and Women, pray for us.
Amen, Amen.

But it is not just these 21, we should remember all those both Christian and non-Christian who have died in this conflict.

ICN - Pope offers Mass for martyred Coptic Christians, condemns arms trade
Vatican Radio - Pope at Santa Marta: Slain because they were Christian
Vatican Radio - Egypt mourns Coptic Christians beheaded in Libya
Vatican Radio - Bishop Martinelli vows to stay in Libya with his flock
The Catholic Herald - After beheading Coptic Christians, Islamists say they will ‘conquer Rome’ next
The Daily Telegraph - The Middle East is red with the blood of Christians
Washington Post - Pope Francis denounces ISIS beheadings: ‘Their blood confesses Christ’
Aleteia - "Their Blood Cries Out To The Lord," Says Pope Francis of Beheaded Copts
The Independent - Egypt's Coptic Christians: Who are they – and why have then been targeted by Isis in beheading video?

Christmastide 2014 - A Christmas with tears - Pope Francis letter to Christians in the Middle East

Today is the feast day of St Stephen the first martyr whose martyrdom is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. And it is a reminder to us all that faith in Christmas - in the Incarnation of Christ - is not an easy or simple thing. For many of our fellow Christians (especially in the last 18 months) their profession of faith has united them directly with the Passion of our Saviour.

Pope Francis has written a Christmas letter to the Christians of the Middle East to express his closeness to them at a time of “afflictions and tribulations” due to “the continuing hostilities in the region, but especially because of the work of a newer and disturbing terrorist organization.” Though the Pope does not refer to the organization by name, Islamic State militants in recent months have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and other minorities from their homes and villages in Iraq.

Listen to the Vatican Radion report HERE.

The full text of Pope Francis' letter is HERE.

On Christmas Eve Pope Francis telephoned refugees sheltered in Kurdistan to express his closeness to them on Christmas night. The telephone call to Father Benoca, who heads the Christian community in the Ankawa Refugee Center near Erbil, the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan, was broadcast live by an Italian Catholic TV station.

You can listen to Vatican Radio's report HERE.

In Syria s Christmas approaches, the Melkite Catholic bishop of Aleppo has written a letter to his diocese looking forward to the feast of hope, urging his people to practice charity to the less fortunate, much like in diocese around the world. But Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart's letter also voices profound hope that peace will return to their country in the next year.

“Christians all over the world are preparing the beautiful feast of Christmas with its humble and heavenly scenes bringing joy, warmth and hope to the hearts of young and old, everywhere in our disenchanted and sad world! We also in Syria are wishing for a Christmas of joy and consolation in the midst of this shameful war which has ravaged our country for almost four years now,” the head of the Melkite Greek Archdiocese of Aleppo wrote. 

In the midst of mothers mourning their children killed and widows their lost husbands, Archbishop Jeanbart remembered that Christmas “is the feast of welcome and of Hope. This feast cannot be celebrated without joy in the hearts and smiles on the lips, this is why I have asked the priests of the diocese to organize, each one in his parish, the festive celebrations thanks to a grant coming from the diocesan fund of social works: Cribs and Christmas trees for the children, parties, raffles and Christmas plays for the youth and friendly gatherings for the adults.”

Continue reading HERE. 

In the Holy Land The Holy City of Jerusalem "is under blood and tears" and religious antagonism jeopardizes its mission of "city of peace and inter-religious coexistence". The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, takes the opportunity of the traditional Christmas message to reconsider with eyes of faith the events that recently marked the lives of the peoples in Holy Land. An account in which pain and hope, despair and consolation intertwine, in a time marked by the visit of Pope Francis, the new Gaza war and the attacks against places of worship.

You can read more of the Patriarch's message HERE and HERE.

Remembering Oscar Romero

Cross-post from Sr Louise over at A Pilgrims Progress:

Throughout history, the voice of the prophet is one of the vehicles through which God speaks to the community and to the world. Today, we commemorate one of these prophets. On this day, 34 years ago, evil men in El Salvador tried to silence the voice of a prophet. I claim this date as being special to my life story because it was the month and the year that I was to grace the world. However God had another plan and I arrived a little earlier on January 24th. It continues to be a day where I remember Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero.

Knowing himself to be on the government’s “hit list,” Romero went to the hills to prepare himself for his final confrontation with evil. He telephoned his farewell message to Exclesior, Mexico’s premier newspaper, insisting that like the Good Shepherd, a pastor must give his life for those he loves. Romero was shot while celebrating an anniverary Mass of a friend’s mother at the local convent. The asassin escaped in the hubbub and has never been found. 250,000 thronged the Cathedral Square for his funeral but sadly even that was not without bloodshed. A bomb exploded. Panic-stricken people stampeded. Forty died. In the next two years 35,000 Salvadorans perished. Fifteen per cent of the population was driven into exile. Two thousand simply “disappeared.” In 1983 Pope John Paul II prayed at Romero’s grave, and then appointed as national archbishop the only Salvadoran bishop to attend Romero’s funeral. The message was plain. The pope had given his imprimatur to all that Romero had exemplified.

My personal admiration for Romero goes back to a discernment weekend which was held in our community in Dublin back in 1997. I remember it vividly because that weekend we watched the movie ‘Romero’. The story of this heroic pastor was life changing. At a certain point of his journey, Romero is shown literally at a crossroads. We see him fall to his knees and he utters a simple prayer: “I can’t, You must, I’m Yours, lead me!” It was the prayer from a heart that didn’t know what to do in the face of such injustice, death and despair. He was the pastor and the sheep continued to be slaughtered and torn from his grasp. I found myself in tears because I realised that that simple prayer echoed the sentiments of my own heart. I had been rebelling against the Lord for such a long time in responding to the call to religious life and I was tired. Romero’s prayer had become my prayer. If I was to embark upon the journey of trying consecrated life, it had to be upon fully surrendering to the guidance of the Shepherd. This simple prayer has been my lifeline on many occasions, a call back to reality and to see that I need to be guided and that I can’t do this on my own. It is a prayer which I whisper often each day when words fail me in prayer or don’t seem to carry me as they usually do.

Pope Francis when he was bishop in Argentina
washes feet on Holy Thursday

When Pope Francis stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Square over a year ago, my first thought was ‘he reminds me of Oscar Romero’, with those thick rimmed glasses and defined jawline and his South America background. In these past ten days, the Pope’s message has been very clear: our Church must remember the poor, the afflicted, the forgotten, the marginalised. Our message must be one of life. Even this morning during his homily for Palm Sunday, he called us to remember the power of the Cross: “Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to die on the Cross. And it is here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross! I think of what Benedict XVI said to the cardinals, 'You are princes, but of a crucified King.' That is Jesus' throne. Jesus takes it upon himself... Why the Cross? Because Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including our own sin—all of us—and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, which none of us can take with us, it must be left behind.”


Again, I think of Romero: “A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth—beware!—is not the true church of Jesus Christ.
(Homily, March 11th,1979.) 

Archbishop Romero, faced with the urgency of his historical moment in El Salvador, calls us to look at the urgency of our own. And he calls his church, including himself, to the highest standard in confronting our moment in history—to name sin, to uproot sin, to be Christ in the world, redeeming it, building up within it the reign of God. Pope Francis, through his ministry as successor of Peter, of Benedict XVI and of all the other popes before him, is a prophet for today.

Let us pray then, in the midst of our Lenten fast, our Lent of repentance and redemption, for our Church, and for ourselves who are that church. We are called to repent the failings of our Church, the sin within it. This day, we reflect especially on the failings of our church to confront the sin of injustice and its causes. We hear the voice of the prophet enjoining us to uproot this sin from our church, to uproot this sin from the hearts of those of us who make up this Church. We are also called to prophesy—for our Church, and we who are church, to be prophets, Christ's voice, Christ's hands in a world deeply mired in injustice, violence and fear.

A free ebook called ‘The Violence of Love’ by Archbishop Romero is available here and the link to the movie 'Romero' is above. The book is really worth a read and the movie worth a viewing especially as we begin the journey with Jesus into Jerusalem, to Calvary and beyond. Buen cammino!