Over 450 world religious Leaders including Pope Francis gathered
at Assisi in italy on three-day event that ended on Tuesday, September 20, and
organised to bring religious leaders from different faiths together in order to
pray for the peace of the world.
The Vatican Radio reports that Pope Francis presided over the
closing ceremony of the event with the theme: Thirst for peace: religions and cultures in dialogue’. The Pope
reportedly said:
“We have come to Assisi as
pilgrims in search of peace. We carry within us and place before God the hopes
and sorrows of many persons and peoples:
we thirst for peace; we desire to witness to peace.”
“Above all, we need to pray for peace, because peace is God’s
gift, and it lies with us to plead for it, embrace it, and build it every day
with God’s help.” The report said while earlier meeting with leaders from
various Christian Churches and ecclesial communities in the Lower Basilica of
St Francis, the Pope said: “Before Christ Crucified, ‘the power and wisdom of
God’ (1 Cor 1:24), we Christians are called to contemplate the mystery of Love
not loved and to pour out mercy upon the world. “On the Cross, the tree of
life, evil was transformed into good; we too, as disciples of the Crucified
One, are called to be ‘trees of life’ that absorb the contamination of
indifference and restore the pure air of love to the world.
“From the side of Christ on the Cross water flowed, that symbol of
the Spirit who gives life (cf. Jn 19:34); so that from us, his faithful,
compassion may flow forth for all who thirst today.” “Here, thirty years ago,
Pope John Paul II said: ‘Peace is a workshop, open to all and not just to
specialists, savants and strategists. Peace is a universal responsibility’.
“Let us assume this responsibility, reaffirming today our ‘yes’ to being,
together, builders of the peace that God wishes for us and for which humanity
thirsts.”
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