IRAQ: STILL IN OUR PRAYERS

Wednesday 7th July: The BBC report that at least 35 people have been killed and 100 wounded in a series of bomb attacks on Shia pilgrims making their way to a shrine in northern Baghdad.

At CSM's hustings on Monday night, the issue of Iraq raised it's head. It's never really gone away - debates amongst those who agree with the war, or disagree with it and think it should never have happened. Enquiries, legal questions, protests, affirmations - we've had it all.

Yeah still, now often silently to the West's media, yet destructively and violenty to the people of Iraq - the violence continues.

St. Francis prayed:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon:

where there is doubt, faith ;

where there is despair, hope

where there is darkness, light

where there is sadness, joy

O divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Today, whilst you read this, would you pray for Iraq. For an end to war, for the peace of God to break out. But most of all, would you pray for peacemakers, for "instrument's of peace" in armies, in insurgent groups, in community leaders and in ordinary people.

Blessed are the peacemakers ....

Amen

Andy Freeman, 07/07/2010