Day of Prayer in Düsseldorf, May 21, 2016.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
I am very happy that I was able to come today and
take part in this Day of Prayer in Dusseldorf. I remember very well the Day of
Prayer in Nitra in March. The atmosphere of this Marian prayer meeting is
always something very special. It is so beautiful that the Day of Prayer takes
place before the image of Our Lady in a true atmosphere of prayer. The
exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, is of course
especially powerful.
After the Day of
Prayer in Nitra, I am even more convinced that St. John Bosco described our
times in his dream: The ship of the Church is out of danger only then when it
is anchored to the Holy Eucharist and Our Lady. It is also in the Holy
Eucharist that we will find peace among the nations, which is otherwise so
unstable these days. And the Mother of God, our mother, prepares us for the
reception of the Holy Eucharist. A day of prayer such as this lets us look to
the future with hope as we see thousands of faithful kneeling in Adoration and
praying the Rosary after going to Confession.
I come from the
Ukraine, from the diocese which is found in the war zone. Hundreds of thousands
of people have had to leave their homes and apartments. Many children cannot go
to their schools anymore. Many people will remain handicapped for the rest of
their lives. All of this, even though just a short time ago no one could have
imagined that such a war would be possible. Soldiers who previously served
together in one army and lived on the same bases are now divided into two camps
and are now on opposite sides of the battleground. I saw white rosaries hanging
around the necks of many of them. When our priests visit the front lines
together with volunteers and reporters, the first thing the soldiers ask them
is for a Rosary or an icon. At the beginning of last year, we began to pass out
the image of the Mother of All Nations with the prayer. This prayer gives us
hope that our Heavenly Mother may reconcile all her children. God, the Father,
is the father of us all. His Son gave us His mother on Golgotha so that we too
may call her mother. So, everyone, whether Russian, Ukrainian, German, Slovak,
or Pole, has the possibility and God given right to call Mary his personal
mother. Our life on earth is very short. In heaven we will all be together. It
is therefore so important that we reconcile with each other already on earth,
so that our unity in heaven may be the continuation of that begun on earth.
The situation in
Donbass, Ukraine, humanly speaking, is very difficult. It seems there is no way
out. But it only seems that way to us! When we look at Mary, at the Mother of
All Nations, then we see in her eyes the motherly care for all the nations of
the earth. The Divine Father is the father of all mankind. And Our Lady
continuously reminds us that we who live upon this earth are all brothers and
sisters. The Mother of All Nations looks upon each and every person and upon
each and every nation with the same love. That means: we should and may place
all of our hope in the intercession of our heavenly mother.
The current
conflict in Donbass, in Eastern Ukraine, shows us that prayer through the
intercession of the Lady of All Nations can stop all evil. For more than a year
now the soldiers on the front have been praying the prayer on the prayer card
of Our Lady. I am convinced that if we ask the mother of the Russian and
Ukrainian peoples with a pure heart, she will work the miracle of
reconciliation between the two.
The hundredth
anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima is approaching and at the
same time, we hear the appeals of Our Lady that she speaks to us in Medjugorje.
In spite of the many crises, so many people are converting! For this
conversion, Our Lady helps us through her intercession and motherly care, but
also through the loving look which she directs to us from the image of the Lady
of All Nations. I believe that all of Eastern and Western Europe will receive
an enormous gift from Dusseldorf today. Eastern Europe will receive the gift of
prayer for a spiritual awakening and reconciliation, and Western Europe - richly
blessed through the prayer from Dusseldorf - will receive a new light. We need
this light to be able to see all the dangers. The return of Western Europe to
the deep prayer of the Rosary and more frequent confessions will aid in the
awakening of the spiritual roots from which Europe has sprung and grown.
May many saints -
German, French, Dutch - yes, every saint of Western Europe, together with Our
Lady, implore for us complete renewal from God the Father.
May the Lord give
us strength and spiritual perseverance so that we may be interiorly prepared
for the times that lay before us. May the Lady of All Nations transmit us all
the graces of God so that we, with true Christian love, together with all our
brother and sisters in faith, may continue on to the Kingdom of God. Let us ask
the Divine Father also to guide the Jews and Muslims to His Son Jesus Christ so
that they too may feel the power of Divine Love, which flows forth from the
heart of the Redeemer and is poured out upon the earth through the Immaculate
Heart of Mary.
I personally pray
the prayer of the Lady of All Nations every day when I pray the breviary. This
prayer is also prayed by many of the faithful in my diocese in the Ukraine,
Zaporizhia.
At the end now, I
would like to turn to the Mother of All Nations and, with joy, pray her
beautiful and powerful prayer in Ukrainian in the name of the Ukrainian and
Russian peoples.
