The Custody of the Holy Land joins in the initiative of a day of prayer, fasting and penitence called by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, for 7 October next, one year since “the Holy Land, and not only, has been plunged into a vortex of violence and hatred never seen or experienced before,” writes the Patriarch in the letter to the diocese.

The Custos of the Holy Land, Fra Francesco Patton, has sent a letter (attached) to all the friars inviting them to join in the initiative: “In all our fraternities, shrines and parishes, we will live 7 October as a day of prayer, fasting and penitence,” the Custos writes, inviting them in particular to recite the Rosary and the prayer for peace indicated by the Patriarch “at one of the daily times of prayer of the fraternity.”

A commitment to peace 

The Patriarch stresses “our condemnation of this senseless war and what has generated it” and the call of political leaders to “find other ways of resolving the current conflict, which take into account the demands of justice, dignity and security for all.” 

“We too – he writes to the Catholic faithful, - have a duty to commit ourselves to peace, first by preserving our hearts from all feelings of hatred, and instead cherishing the desire for good for everyone. By committing ourselves, each in our own community contexts and in the forms we can, we should support those in need, help those who are personally invested to alleviate the suffering of those affected by this war, and promote every action of peace, reconciliation and encounter.”

Prayer for peace

“We also need to pray, to bring our pain and our desire for peace to God.” Hence the invitation to “a day of prayer, fasting and penance on October 7 next, a date that has become symbolic of the drama we are experiencing.”

The month of October is also the Marian month and on October 7 we celebrate the memory of Mary Queen of the Rosary. “May each of us, with the rosary or in whatever form he or she sees fit, personally but better again in community, find a moment to pause and pray.”