{"id":342262,"date":"2013-09-09T07:18:59","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T05:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/forgiveness-dialogue-reconciliation-are-the-words-of-peace\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:10:13","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:10:13","slug":"forgiveness-dialogue-reconciliation-are-the-words-of-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/forgiveness-dialogue-reconciliation-are-the-words-of-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgiveness, dialogue, reconciliation are the words of peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u201cLet the sounds of weapons cease! War always marks a defeat for humanity.\u201d<\/strong> Severe words from Pope Francis during the vigil of Saturday, September 7th<\/sup> in Saint Peter\u2019s Square, where he prayed for peace inSyria and throughout the world. In the days preceding the vigil there had already been much response<\/a> from many parts of the world, also from Amman, Jordan<\/a>, where Maria Voce had gone to represent the Focolare Movement. A hundred thousand people prayed with Francesco<\/strong> for four hours of awesome silence. The quiet atmosphere of composure and recollection was interrupted only by the sound of prayer. The Pope venerated the icon of the Salus Populi Romani<\/em>, Mary Protectress of the Roman Peoples. Then the Rosary was recited by the crowd in a single voice. As the conversation with Mary unfolded, a sense of trust in the Mother of All and Queen of Peace filled everyone\u2019s soul. Amongst the crowd, just outside the barriers, a group of Muslims recited verses from the Koran. In an atmosphere of universality, everyone raised prayers to the one God. \"\"The meditation<\/a> offered by the Pope was very dense; his face concentrated and serious. He began with the Book of Genesis, speaking of God\u2019s desire for harmony in Creation, and of the chaos that was unleashed by man through violence and dispute: \u201cWhere is your brother, Abel?\u201d \u201cThe same question is asked of us, and it would also be good for us to ask ourselves: Am I my brother\u2019s keeper? Yes, you are your brother\u2019s keeper! Being a human being means caring for one another!\u201d But when we break this harmony, \u201cthe brother to be cared for becomes an adversary whom I must fight and eliminate.\u201d \u201cStill today we raise our hand against our brother.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cWe have perfected our weapons, as our conscience fell asleep, we have sharpened our thinking to justify ourselves \u00a0. . . Violence and war\u00a0 bring death only. They speak only death! Violence and war speak the language of death!\u201d \u201cCan we get out of this spiral of sorrow and death?\u201d<\/strong> the Pope asks. \u201cYes, it is possible for everyone!\u201d And a loud applause confirmed his words. \u201cI would like us to cry out from every corner of the world: Yes, it is possible for everyone! Indeed, I would like each one of us, from the smallest to the greatest, including those who have been called to govern the nations, to respond: Yes, we want it!\u201d \"\"<\/a>Then he went on: \u201cHow I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross<\/strong> if only for a moment! There, we can see God\u2019s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken. Then the praying continued. Long silences followed by prayers and songs.<\/strong> A long period of silent adoration. Everyone was focused on the white host in the golden monstrance, focused on that God who appeared to be like the heart of the world in that moment. On the next day, the 8th of September, during the Angelus<\/em><\/a> he spoke again about peace<\/strong> \u201cin this moment as we are so strongly praying\u201d for it. He exhorted everyone to \u201csay \u2018no\u2019 to fratricide and to the lies it makes use of, no to all forms of violence, no to weapons proliferation.\u201d Then without hesitation he strongly added: \u201cThis war here, that war there \u2013 because there are wars everywhere \u2013 are they truly wars because of problems or because commerce, for selling the illegal selling of weapons?\u201d It\u2019s time to say \u201cno\u201d to conflicts<\/strong>, to hatred, to violence towards our brothers and sisters. But to say this \u201cno\u201d \u201cit\u2019s necessary that each one of us strongly and courageously decides to renounce evil and its seductions, and choose good.\u201d \u201cLet us carry on with prayer and works of peace\u201d<\/strong> so that \u201cthe violence and devastation inSyriamay immediately cease, and we may work with renewed commitment for a just solution to conflict and fratricide. The search for peace is long. It requires patience and perseverance.\u201d   By Victoria G<\/em>\u00f3mez<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Francis prays with 100,000 people in Saint Peter\u2019s Square as the world unites in a chain of faith and fasting for peace. At the Angelus of Sunday, September 8th, a new appeal from the Pope for \u201cprayers and works of peace\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}