The Archbishop of Tehran (Iran), Cardinal Dominique Mathieu, shares his “War Diary”, in which he affirms that the prayer to the Lord helps not to succumb to the seductions of evil, and to recognize that the Lord is always present, even if it does not seem like this.
“On the eleventh day of war,” the purple shared his reflection with Asia Newsand points out that before the current situation “the Lord is the only stable connection, that we must feed with prayer, so as not to succumb to the seductions of evil, which floods the line of fears and concerns and makes us sink. Didn’t the disciples say: ‘Teacher, don’t you care that we perish?’ (Marcos 4,38)? ”
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The cardinal’s reflection is given after the weekend the United States bombard several nuclear facilities in Iran – conflict with Israel – and that the Iranian regime responded by attacking US military bases in Qatar and Iraq.
In Tehran – where silence is frequent in the streets – “the first thing that is done when rising is to climb to the terrace of the roof to observe the columns of smoke, which indicate the bombed places.”
“The other ritual is to open the entrance door and take a look to the street, empty of cars and people from one end to another, except for a demacrated cat in search of love and something to eat.”
The days, the purple, “do not take place as before. Long silences, in which the slightest noise raises the fear of a new attack, interrogate the minds about whether it is time to undertake something or not.”
“In the minds there is concern, such as the disciples aboard the ship with Jesus asleep, who fight in the midst of the storm against the water that threatens to sink them. We wonder why Jesus seems absent, especially now that the elements are unleashed. And in the end we end up shaking him to wake him up, so that he does something. In the boat, which is the church, he reminds us that he is present.”
In that sense, he emphasizes alluding to Corpus Christi, “to expose his Eucharistic body under the rumble of the shots restores silence in the mind and states that, although the sea is agitated, he is on board and calms the storm.”
Cardinal Mathieu then recalls that “peace is achieved through the peaceful resolution of conflicts, working for justice, reconciliation and human dignity!
“Peace is the result of love and mercy. To resolve conflicts and promote peace, you have to go through the path of nonviolence and dialogue,” emphasizes purple, which finally recalls the constant call to the peace of Pope Leo XIV.
“The war does not solve the problems, on the contrary, it amplifies them and produces deep injuries in the history of the peoples, which take generations to heal,” said Pope León after the prayer of the Mariana del Ángelus prayer in the Plaza de San Pedro in the Vatican.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.