Peace to you all from Gethsemane, the garden of the Lord’s obedience.
In the face of the escalation that we are seeing and the fragile truce we must strengthen our prayer. It is not a matter of multiplying our prayers, but of becoming ourselves a prayer pleasing to the living God (cf. Rom 12,1). We should be little Abrahams who with great confidence and insistence intercede for this confused humanity which wants to impose peace with a totally worldly force (cf. Gen 18:24ff).
At this time many people are showing their solidarity with us through prayer and ask how they can help. We want to invite everyone to pray for those who carry the real weight of this injustice given by the scourge of war, we barely carry the moral weight, but in comparison we are fine. There are other victims who suffer the violence of hatred, with the risk of perpetuating this wound by becoming the cultural baggage in which new generations grow up. All this should spur us to ask God the Father for the gift of faith, to look at reality as his Only-begotten Son has taught us. In fact, we cannot here open a thorough debate on the power of the Evil one, but we mention it only, if there are executioners who do evil, and we all see the bad fruits, it must be considered that these, before being such, are victims of the Evil one, are his slaves, even without knowing it! This does not justify what they do, but it should encourage us to pray more for all, even our enemies (cf Mt 5,38-48).
The Lord Jesus, when he arrives in this garden it is night, asks to be near him, a request of closeness that once again tells us the greatest mystery for us. On the one hand he invites us not to enter into darkness alone. On the other hand we should perceive that the Lord always acts, even in the darkest night. It is in this way that He approaches every person who is in suffering and becomes their consolation, it is He who comes to wipe away every tear from those who carry His image on their faces (cf.Rev 7:17; Gen 1:26-27).
Paradoxically also through this trial we are invited to have greater awareness, as all things pass and only God is the Absolute. Everything passes, He remains! In this sense we could say that we too must wage a "harder war", the fight against ourselves, to leave aside unnecessary and too human things, and from being disarmed, to rise up into the nobility of what really counts and is worthy to be loved: God and our neighbor.
Let’s ask by the intercession of Mary Most Holy for the gift of Peace according to the Lord, let us begin to live it ourselves in the reality in which the heavenly Father has thought and placed us, let us live as citizens of Heaven, who are in the world, but are not of the world, let us live in faith in Him who alone can save us!
Good prayer
