LET US PRAY WITH POPE FRANCIS – IN JUNE •
“May the Spirit grant peace to the whole world. May He heal the wounds of war and of terrorism, which even this [Saturday] night, in London, struck innocent civilians: let us pray for the victims and their families.”
With these words, Pope Francis asked the universal Church to unite their prayers for peace and for the victims of the attacks in London on the eve of Pentecost.
Another #prayforLondon hashtag?
As we remember Manchester, Paris, and Berlin, we run the risk of forgetting Bagdad, Manila and Kabul who suffered deadly attacks or the hundreds of people who died of cholera in Yemen and the children who die of hunger in Somalia, Sudan and so many other countries….
“Every new tragedy that occurs in the world’s history can also become a setting for good news, inasmuch as love can find a way to draw near and to raise up sympathetic hearts, resolute faces and hands ready to build anew,” Pope Francis wrote in his Message for World Communications Day 2017 and which Fr. Guillermo Ortiz (SJ) reminded us on Vatican Radio.
We could ask him: How can tragedy become a setting for good news?
Pope Francis, after having said that we must stop giving importance to evil that gives rise to despair and brings fear, invites us to share good news that instil trust and hope. He explained that Jesus himself is the Good News even though his life was not free from suffering. “In his beloved Son, this divine promise – “I am with you” – embraces all our weakness, even to dying our death. In Christ, even darkness and death become a point of encounter with Light and Life.” The Holy Father has spoken about the resurrection and repeats it now in other words, stating: “Seen in this light, every new tragedy that occurs in the world’s history can also become a setting for good news, inasmuch as love can find a way to draw near and to raise up sympathetic hearts, resolute faces and hands ready to build anew.”
The doctors in Kabul, Bagdad, Manila, London — running to help the victims and forgetting their tiredness and even danger — are good news. The silent heroes in Manchester like the homeless man who ran to help injured children and teenagers; the lady who comforted the children and took them to a nearby hotel, the taxi drivers who offered free rides to the young victims, and those who opened their doors in the middle of the night to the fleeing people of London: these are all good news.
A Church which, this Pentecost and throughout the whole month of June, unites in prayer for the victims of violence, terror and war, is good news.
A Schoenstatt that opens its shrines to the desperate cries of the victims of war and violence, hunger and injustice and fills the jars with contributions to the Capital of Grace for them, is also good news.
BLESSED PENTECOST IN COVENANT SOLIDARITY WITH POPE FRANCIS AND ALL THOSE WHO SUFFER
Original: Spanish, June 4, 2017. Translation: Sarah-Leah Pimentel, Cape Town, South Africa
