PROVIDENCE — On Tuesday, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, led Catholics in the Holy Land in a day of prayer and fasting, and called for Catholics around the world to similarly observe the day for peace in Israel and Gaza.
On October 7, the terrorist group Hamas brutally attacked Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, and abducting about 200 other people of various nationalities.
Bishop Richard G. Henning celebrated a well-attended noon Mass at the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul with a message of hope and peace for the war-torn Middle East.
“The response to violence, the medicine for the sickness, begins with an acknowledgement yet again, that God is God, and we are not,” the bishop said in response to the cardinal’s call. “We can’t fix ourselves, let alone Creation,” he added. “We implore the Lord to deliver us from violence and injustice.”
Bishop Henning asked all the faithful across the diocese to lift their hearts in prayer, asking the Lord to cleanse us of hatred and sin, to bring an end to violence and war, to embrace the lost, heal the wounded, and console the sorrowful.
“In the face of terrible deeds, may the Lord raise up in our hearts a renewed sense of compassion and solidarity,” he said, encouraging all to pray the rosary if they couldn’t make it to their parish churches that day.
The bishop said that we must all live a life in which we are not the center of our own universe.
“It means a life in which we seek to love God and our neighbor, fully,” he said.
