As part of an ongoing visit to Ukraine, the Vatican’s Secretary of State visited a heavily bombarded city on the weekend and celebrated Mass at a popular Marian shrine, telling locals to never lose hope and to continue praying for peace. Source: Crux.
Speaking at the closing Mass of an annual pilgrimage to the Marian shrine in Berdychiv on Sunday, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin told attendees to “never lose faith and hope in God.”
“Above all today, when it seems that evil has the upper hand, when the horrors of war and the pain of the many victims and the massive destruction undermine faith in divine goodness, when our arms fall and we no longer even have the strength to pray,” Cardinal Parolin said.
The cardinal is visiting Ukraine from July 19 to 24. In addition to celebrating Mass at the Berdychiv shrine, he will stop in the bomb-ridden city of Odessa and meet with civil and ecclesial authorities.
Run by Discalced Carmelites, the Marian shrine in Berdychiv every year draws some 4000 people from across the country and beyond, who come in pilgrimage to pray for various intentions. For the past two years, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pilgrims have especially been praying for peace.
In his homily, read almost entirely in Ukrainian by Bishop Eduward Kawa, an auxiliary bishop for the Latin Archdiocese of Lviv, Cardinal Parolin assured attendees that Pope Francis is close to them and shares the pain of Ukrainians, saying the pontiff reaches out to them “with his paternal embrace”.
Cardinal Parolin invited faithful to “unceasing prayer, so that God may convert the hearts of those who, having strayed from his ways and having become slaves to their own pride, sow violence and death, trampling on the dignity of children in others.”
“We must truly ask the Lord, he who is the heavenly physician, to heal us from these lethal diseases and replace the heart of stone with a heart of flesh!” he said.
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Top Vatican cardinal tells Ukrainians to ‘never lose faith’ (By Elise Ann Allen, Crux)
