Parishioners Pray for End to Persecution of Iraq’s Christians

Parishioners Pray for End to Persecution of Iraq’s Christians

Mass calls for peace

The sound of overlapping prayers chanted in both Arabic and English filled Mary Immaculate of Lourdes parish Saturday evening as parishioners joined the Iraqi community to Pray for Peace and an End to the Persecution of Christians in Iraq.

“Particularly in times like this, we must remember that Christ is the Light, that Christ is victorious,” the Rev. Michael Harrington, director of the office of outreach and cultural diversity for the Boston Archdiocese, told the several hundred at Mass. “We must all be reflections of that light, bringing hope where there is only despair.”

He deplored the actions of the Islamic State in Iraq, where it is reported that up to 100,000 Christians have fled toward Iraqi Kurdistan under pressure from the militant group.

Praying for Christians in Iraq

“There are no words to describe it,” said Sermed Ashkouri, an Iraqi immigrant and co-coordinator of Our Lady of Mesopotamia Syriac Catholic Mission. “It’s a holocaust right now.”

Ashkouri said his family and friends in Mosul and surrounding villages have been forced out of their homes after Islamic State threatened to kill Christians and other religious minorities who do not flee or convert to Islam.

The Rev. Bassim Shoni, chaplain to the Iraqi Community of Boston, encouraged people to pray for the suffering Iraqis “kicked out from their villages, their homes, with nothing.”

Passed out with prayer books Friday was a flier depicting the Arabic letter ‘N,’ standing for ‘Nasrani,’ the Arabic word for Christian. In Mosul, the letter was spray-painted on Christian homes to be seized by Islamic State. Those Christians were given an ultimatum, the flier said: Convert to Islam and pay a religious levy, or face death. Tens of thousands fled.

The Mass, he said, was a chance to come together. In the midst of the strife, it was a small help.

In a blog post this week, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley asked Catholics around the world to pray for the people of Iraq.

“It is important that we pray for them during this time when so much of the Christian population has been completely displaced and so many people have lost their homes, their families, and even their lives,” he wrote Friday, the same day he celebrated a Mass focused on the Iraqi situation at St. Leonard’s Church in the North End.

 

Last week, Pope Francis condemned the militants’ campaign against religious minorities, which he said left him “in dismay and disbelief.” In his Sunday blessing, he cited “thousands of people, including many Christians, driven from their homes in a brutal manner; children dying of thirst and hunger in their flight; women kidnapped; people massacred; [and] violence of every kind.

“All this gravely offends God and humanity. Hatred is not to be carried in the name of God,” he added. “War is not to be waged in the name of God.”

Saturday’s Mass in Newton was “a time to give them our support and pray for them and tell them they’re not alone in this country,” said Father Charles J. Higgins of Mary Immaculate of Lourdes, where the Iraqi community often celebrates Mass.

The Syriac Catholic Mission, which has grown to include 90 mostly refugee families, provides a sense of home to Iraqis in America. Every few weeks, Shoni drives 600 miles from Allentown, Pa., to deliver Mass in Arabic and Syriac.

Many non-Iraqis attended in solidarity. Veronika Vanags of Latvia sat solemnly as the crowd prayed in Arabic. “This is very serious,” she said. “God will hear our prayers in peace, and he will help.”

Ashkouri said he hopes the man chosen to be the country’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, will be able to quell the violence of the Islamic State.

“They are more than terrorists,” Ashkouri said. “They are more than monsters."

                            By Claire McNeill

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/16/iraqimass/yuPY9NQJTz4HFb55wm2nTL/story.html

"Don't proselytize; respect others' beliefs." We can inspire others through witness so that one grows together in communicating. But the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyses: 'I am talking with you in order to persuade you,' No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. "The church grows by attraction, not proselytizing,” the Pope said.

"Work for peace." We are living in a time of many wars, he said, and the call for peace must be shouted. Peace sometimes gives the impression of being quiet, but it is never quiet, peace is always proactive and dynamic.

Yes, surely we, as the Lord of Creation, should restore our human dignity and an appreciation of the value of life. For any kind of religions teaches to live in peace not in war. Concerning the origin of religion, the master is the Creator, God. Therefore all religions should be unified as one under God's Providence. If so, there is no more wars and conflicts one another. Nevertheless because one side of religions has been occupied by the Devil Satan, there always were wars and conflicts between Satan's side and God's. 

But now is the Time of Peace, so we should come together and find solutions for World Peace. As surely as God lives, he will be with us and let us live in Peace and security. Let us pray for that, Peace will come upon us. No to war and persecution, Yes to Peace and Love.

May God bless those who pray and practice for it.

Amen.

'Nevertheless, I will bring Health and Healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant Peace and Security.'      (Jer 33:6)