Rector Major: Appeal for Peace, Easter 2016
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My dear sisters and brothers of the entire Salesian Family throughout the world,dear young people in different places of the Salesian world, I send you my sincere greetings as we draw near to Holy Week and Easter.
The purpose of this appeal is to invite you all where ever you are in the Salesian world, to make this a time of intense faith and prayer.
And the reason is this:
the pain which we are forced to undergo in so many parts of the world is too much, so many people of different religions and confessions
are suffering a real martyrdom.
In our Church, a large number of Christian men and women, are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus.
The latest drama, as we well know, took place in Yemen, where several people were killed four Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa
who died as martyrs, and other lay men and women who gave their lives for their faith, simply because they were there at the end, they also were martyrs, mowed down by a senseless violence.
We continue to follow with pain and with great concern, what is happening to our brother Tom, a Salesian of Don Bosco, who disappeared and about whom we have no news.
I also wish to express our closeness, and our solidarity to his family while we implore from the Lord a deep peace that he may endure this moment trusting in the Lord Jesus.
Therefore I invite everyone to spend a very intense moment of prayer on the evening of Holy Thursday, when we join with Jesus in the pain and loneliness of Gethsemane.
I sincerely hope that all our Salesian Family in the world and our young people in different places and at different times will be united
In this one prayer: for peace.
We join with Pope Francis, who continually prays for this peace.
Let us implore peace from the Lord, and ask for infinite eternal peace for the martyrs and the extraordinary power of the Risen Lord
for all who suffer so much pain and persecution.
Let us also remember our brother Tom.
Thank you for accepting this initiative and may the Lord bless you. I greet you from my heart.
