Dear Friends of Stillsong Hermitage,
I wanted to invite you to share in an event that is taking place tomorrow evening in Rome, and wherever we each are in this world that so desperately cries out for peace at this particular time. Pope Leo XIV has called the whole world to join him in a Prayer Vigil for Peace, Saturday, April 11, at 6:00 p.m. Rome time (9:00 a.m. Pacific/noon Eastern). The vigil can be followed live from home via Vatican News and EWTN.
The Holy Father's call "rises from an urgent truth he has named with uncommon directness: "We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and growing indifferent. 'He invites us — all of us — to resist that indifference with the one power that can truly change hearts: prayer." We tend to turn to prayer when we feel helpless to do anything else, or (better) when we have also done everything else we can do as well! Coming together in such a way is both a means and a goal of the fulfillment of such prayer. We recognize that our entire world has been threatened by the actions of a single man and all he has set in motion, though not only by this, and we remember that in Christ we belong to one another and to God in this single world in which we are called to be one.
The candles used at the vigil tomorrow night (or tomorrow morning here in California) will be lit from the flame of the "Lamp of Peace" --- the oil lamp that has burned perpetually at the tomb of St Francis at the Basilica of Assisi, and has never gone out. [[It has kept vigil through eight centuries of war and wounding, poverty and plague, and it burns still. Tonight it travels to St. Peter's Square for the vigil tomorrow. Pope Leo himself has written a prayer to Francis for this moment:
"You recognized true peace in the Crucifix of San Damiano;
teach us to seek in him the source of all reconciliation
that breaks down every wall.
You who, unarmed, crossed the lines of war and misunderstanding,
give us the courage to build bridges
where the world raises up boundaries."
Along with my Franciscan and Camaldolese Brothers and Sisters, I invite you to join the vigil tomorrow in whatever way is possible for you: streaming along with the Holy Father, gathering with your family or community, or simply pausing in the quiet of your home or heart. [[As the USCCB president noted, even "one Hail Mary with sincere faith" is a real act of solidarity with every soul caught in the fires of war.]] With thanks to Michael Cummingham, OFS, from San Damiano Retreat Center.
Posts
