Christianity can survive in Iraq but not without your help

November 2, 2017 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Santiago, Chile, Nov 2, 2017 / 04:00 pm (ACI Prensa).- “Iraq needs aid now, or it will be without Christians,” said Fr. Luis Montes, a missionary priest has been serving in the Middle East and the Holy Land for more than 20 years. His current mission is a refugee camp in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, that houses 120,000 people.

Fr. Montes has also visited Christians who have decided to return to their cities liberated from ISIS, where only the foundations of their houses are left standing, marked with the Arabic letter “nun,” which stands for  “Nazarene,” or Christian.

A native of Argentina and member of the  Institute of the Incarnate Word religious order, Fr. Montes was invited by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in Chile to raise awareness about the current situation of Christians in formerly-ISIS occupied areas of Iraq.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, Fr. Montes explained that Christians displaced by the war are returning to their destroyed hometowns because they have “the grace of God that allows them to endure martyrdom.”

“God gives courage to those who are the weakest. This is something purely from God, not from themselves. In face of persecution, God gives them grace. He never gives us a mission he doesn’t give us the strength for. God gives them the grace to endure the worst pain and torture and to be able to follow him,” he said.

“There are things that help them, for example, their very beautiful devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the queen of martyrs, she teaches them to be martyrs.”

“Everything was taken away from the refugees,” so lacking material goods, they just “simplify their lives,” the missionary priest explained.

“Life is simple. They love God because he is the giver of their material needs. They love the Blessed Virgin because she is the Mother that God has given us.”

“That is the wisdom that comes from the Cross. They know their crosses and whoever joins himself to the Cross has that wisdom and draws on it and God grants him peace, which is the closest thing to happiness here on earth,” he added.

“When you visit them” the priest continued, “ you see suffering people but they have an inner peace. Despite everything they have suffered, they never deny their God. The people thank God every day. They tell him about their hardships, they weep and then they finish saying, ‘Allah karim’ which means ‘God is generous,’” he said.

“This people has suffered so much but, they are people tested by suffering. They hold fast to their  faith because their situation is simpler than what you can see from the outside. They are well formed in their faith, so for them, reconstructing their lives is the easier thing to do.”

“Starting their lives over brings them a great deal of joy and consolation, knowing that they can go back to their cities, to their former lives. They have been living as refugees. Compared to that, this is now a paradise!” Fr. Montes emphasized.

While basic services are slowly returning to the cities destroyed by ISIS, the families that come camp over the foundations of the homes that were burned or destroyed by the Islamic extremists.

Fr. Montes said that help coming to the refugees from Christians, through organizations like Aid to the Church in Need, is essential to their repatriation.

Since 2014, ACN has been providing food and housing for displaced Christian families.

“With outside aid coming in, Christians have the courage to begin again and return to their lives. But the aid has to come now or Iraq will be without Christians, ” he stressed

“The Church in Iraq is going through a crucial moment and helping them is everyone’s duty. Imagine how shameful it would be for future generations if it were to be said that Christians had to abandon the Middle East because no one came to their aid,” Fr. Montes concluded.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Jerusalem archbishop blesses city with True Cross relic

April 6, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

CNA Staff, Apr 6, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Unable to lead the traditional Palm Sunday procession through Jerusalem, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, blessed the city with a relic of the True Cross on April 5.

The annual procession, which recalls Christ’s entry into the city and the beginning of Holy Week, was cancelled in line with international efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19, with public gatherings and events suspended in Israel. 

“We decided since we cannot have the palm procession, to have anyway a moment of prayer this afternoon,” said Pizzaballa on Sunday. The archbishop led a short, multi-lingual “moment of prayer” at Dominus Flevit, a church located on the Mount of Olives.

The church, which is shaped like a teardrop, overlooks the city, and was built to mark the Gospel account of Jesus weeping as he envisioned the destruction of Jerusalem.

The prayer service ended with Pizzaballa raising a relic of the True Cross over the city in benediction. 

Jerusalem, said Pizzaballa, “is a symbol of the church, the symbol also of humanity. It is the house of prayer for all the people, according to the scriptures.”

“So when we cry [over] Jerusalem, together with Jesus, we cry [over] all our human fraternity, for this difficult moment we are living, for this sad Palm Sunday, this Easter we have to celebrate.”

Pizzaballa said that sadness over being unable to celebrate the liturgical feasts of Holy Week is real, but “maybe, in a way also very true, very essential.” 

“Today we have not celebrated the solemn and beautiful entrance of Jesus to the city of Jerusalem like every year, with faithful from all the parishes of the diocese and with pilgrims from all over the world,” Pizzaballa said during the prayer service.

“We have not raised our palms and olive branches to cry out ‘Hosanna’ to our king, Jesus the Christ.” 

Instead, the archbishop asked Catholics in the Holy Land and around the world to consider what the Lord may be trying to say during these times.

He noted that, while the people of Jerusalem in the Gospel greeted him with cheers on Palm Sunday, Jesus knew that “He came to Jerusalem, not to be on the throne like David, but to be put to death.” 

“The meaning that Jesus attributes to his ‘triumphal entry’ is different from the meaning that the people of Jerusalem saw in it,” he said.

“Perhaps this is the lesson that Jesus wants to teach us today. We turn to God when there is something that harms us. When we are in trouble, suddenly we all want to ask big and difficult questions.”

While people may be praying for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic as we often do for solutions  to other problems, the archbishop said that  “Jesus responds in His own way” to these prayers. 

“Precisely because Jesus says ‘yes’ to our deepest desires, He will have to say ‘no’ to our immediate desires,” he said.

Drawing comparisons between this year’s Palm Sunday and the biblical Palm Sunday during Christ’s earthly life, Pizzaballa said the story of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem “is a lesson on the discrepancy between our expectations and God’s response.” 

The crowd who greeted Jesus was disappointed that their salvation was not immediate, said Pizzaballa, but “Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is truly the moment when salvation is born.” 

“The ‘Hosannas’ were justified, even if not for the reasons the Jerusalemites had supposed,” he said. 

This remains true today, he explained. Although it may seem as though God is not answering prayers and leaves people “disappointed,” this is in part because “our expectations remain without an apparent response.”

Christianity, he said, “is based on hope and love, not certainty,” and that while God will not answer all problems with certainty, “He won’t leave us alone.” 

“And here, today, despite everything, at the gates of His and our city, we declare that we really want to welcome Him as our King and Messiah, and to follow Him on His way to His throne, the cross,” he said.  

“But we also ask Him to give us the strength necessary to carry it with His own, fruitful love.”

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