War in Ukraine, prayers for peace in Moscow, according to Pope’s intentions
The Archbishop of Moscow on the war in Ukraine: “Bringing peace does not mean smoothing out all the roughness and levelling out differences. Bringing peace means accepting everyone, even those who think differently from us. Peace is above all the ability to forgive”
The hope and analysis of the Archbishop of Moscow, Monsignor Paolo Pezzi
To bring peace, the desire that animated Monsignor Paolo Pezzi, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow and the faithful who participated, on 7 October, in the recitation of the Holy Rosary organised on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
An act of faith in the hours of the explosion at the Crimean bridge, which in the eyes of many represents a moment of fundamental escalation in the conflict that divides Ukraine and Russia.
The gesture of peace that seems so distant and yet so necessary.
“A peace-loving person often seems weak, but in reality he is genuinely strong, because he is able to remain calm and lucid in his thinking, and knows how to assign everything its proper place.
In the hierarchy of values, the first place goes to the knowledge that we are children of one God: a knowledge that is a guarantee of peace.
Mary, You are the Queen of Peace, because everything that happened in your life had its proper place”.
Then recalling in his homily the historical origins of the liturgical feast day, instituted by Pius V in 1572 to commemorate the victory of the Battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571), the archbishop emphasised: “While fighting, Pius V had decided to pray and fast.
We know how the battle ended, but perhaps not everyone knows that the great admiral of the Christian fleet warned the Pope of Rome that it was not the weapons or the prowess of the sailors that gave victory, but the prayers of the Rosary”.
The Archbishop of Moscow and the value of prayer in the eyes of God:
“We cannot even imagine how great is the value of prayer in the eyes of God.
Jesus Himself, in a well-known passage in the Gospel of Luke, speaks of this power and is surprised that His disciples do not believe in it.
This temptation also exists for us. We are here today to ask for peace, to ask for hearts to soften. (…)
The same God, whom nothing can define and nothing can contain, desires to dwell in our hearts.
And what do we respond?
What do the people on whom, in some way, the fate of the world depends respond?
Today we desire that their hearts be opened, but it is necessary first of all that our hearts be opened: only then will our prayer be true, will it be for the good of all men.
Not for the realisation of our own plans, but for the fulfilment of God’s plan’.
The Archdiocese of the Mother of God, led by Archbishop Pezzi, covers a territory of 2,629,000 square kilometres and comprises a hundred communities.
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