Pray with the Pope – March 2016

Let’s Pray with the Pope for his intentions for the month of March

Mercy for refugees

General Intention: Families in Difficulty. That families in need may receive the necessary support and that children may grow up in healthy and peaceful environments.

Refugees attempting to find a normal world are forced to make the most awful choices affecting their children. The Syrians crossing the Aegean Sea must agonise about whether to take their children with them or to leave them in the care of relatives until they are settled in Europe.

They will all have seen the photo of the little boy Aylan Kurdi lying dead on the beach in Turkey. No one should be forced to takes such risks with their children. No child should be put at risk of losing its parents or being separated from them. And yet these are the stark realities for millions at the moment.

The families that make it safely across to Greece often weep for joy and relief on landing, but their hardships are far from over, even if they have escaped from the battlefields of Syria and the refugee camps of Turkey or the Middle East. They may still have to walk hundreds of kilometres through strange countries, sleeping out in the open in all weather, with no guarantee of food or drink or medical care. To do this with small, bewildered children must be a parent’s nightmare.

I imagine that it was the plight of the children that most moved the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other concerned Europeans to welcome the refugees. Pope Francis lent his authority to the situation by asking members of the Church to show compassion and hospitality.

In an unstable world those of us who are fortunate enough to live secure family lives will naturally feel grateful. But we are asked to remember, and if possible do something to alleviate the situation of those who are forced to endure that terror and insecurity, especially their children.

Christian witness

Missionary Intention: That those Christians who, on account of their faith, are discriminated against or are being persecuted, may remain strong and faithful to the Gospel, thanks to the incessant prayer of the Church.

Shenouda III, the Egyptian Coptic Pope, once said of the Christians in his country: “We do not live in Egypt; Egypt lives in us.” What he meant was that the ancient Coptic Christian community is an essential part of the Egyptian national, cultural and religious identity.

Even though today the Copts are a minority, their religious tradition is deeply rooted in Egypt, going back to the beginnings of Christianity and giving the Church great saints and scholars such as St Anthony, the father of monasticism.

I wonder if it is this sense of the deep rootedness of the Christian faith which prompts people like Fr Jacques Mourad (Southern Cross, December 23, 2015) to return to the Middle East. Fr Mourad, a Syrian priest of the community of Al-Khalil and the prior of St Elian’s monastery, was kidnapped by the so-called Islamic State and imprisoned, along with a deacon, in a bathroom in Raqqa for four months. During that time the two of them had to endure much privation and many threats, including death threats. Eventually he managed to escape on a motorbike, disguised as an Islamist and with the help of a Muslim friend.

After his escape he was involved in the delicate business of negotiating the release of various Christian groups held by IS.

But now he has decided to return to Syria. On the face of it this seems like a quixotic venture, a mission impossible. Someone without faith might also see it as tempting fate. But one of the themes coming out of the current tragedy of Middle Eastern Christianity is the deep sense of just how important it is to continue to have a presence there and to continue to give witness to the Gospel.

This does not appear to flow from a stubborn sense of resistance. It stems from a deep conviction that without the Christian faith, the Middle East will no longer be true to what it was—a region where the three great Abrahamic religions arose,  grew and spread.

This sense of responsibility for the wider society is rather well summed up in a quotation from Fr Mourad in a recent interview: “The entire Syrian people are victims of this war. I believe that when Jesus gave his life, he gave it for all, and we, as a Church, are responsible for the entire Syrian people, not only the Christians. This is a responsibility to commit ourselves very seriously, that everyone has peace.”

People with such breadth of vision and depth of courageous faith more than deserve our prayers.