TOGETHER WITH THE POPE A DAY OF PRAYER AND FASTING

TOGETHER WITH THE POPE A DAY OF PRAYER AND FASTING

The Italian Church adheres to the invitation of Pope Francis to live, Friday, September 4, a day of prayer and fasting for Lebanon.

The Bishops, in communion with the universal Church, want to express the closeness of Italy to an exhausted population and ask priests, men and women religious and all the people of the believers to gather tomorrow in a moment of prayer that has the country of the cedars at heart.

A prayer that, taking up the Pope’s words, also wants to be an invitation to perseverance in the trial, an encouragement for “all Lebanese people to continue to hope and to find the necessary strength and energy to start again”.

Lebanon, recalled Francis, for over a hundred years “has been a country of hope. Even during the darkest periods of its history, the Lebanese have preserved their faith in God and demonstrated the ability to make their land a place of tolerance, respect and coexistence unique in the region”.

At a time when there are ever stronger winds of intolerance and closure everywhere, praying for Lebanon is a way to rethink how much there is a need for authentic respect and community building in every place. So let us be builders of peace, because “for the very good of the country, but also of the world, we cannot allow this heritage to be dispersed.

03 September 2020

IN BEIRUT WE MUST UNITE OUR HEARTS
AND OUR MINDS

ROME – “This disaster is showing the true identity of Lebanon. We are all facing it together, Muslims and Christians, Lebanese and Syrian refugees. A long road of healing has begun, and we can do it together”.

Speaking with the agency Dire is Sister Antoinette Assaf, one of the 40 Good Shepherd Sisters who since 1893 have been working alongside the most vulnerable sections of the population in Lebanon and Syria.

The interview is held three weeks after the explosion in a warehouse in the port of Beirut, which on August 4 destroyed part of the capital causing more than 200 deaths, more than 5,000 injured and tens of thousands of displaced people. Sister Assaf says the situation remains critical.

“The explosion and the days that followed – she recalls – were shocking, a nightmare from which we all wanted to wake up as soon as possible.

The incident in the port, explains the nun, has caught Lebanon in an already very complex situation. Sister Assaf underlines that “more than half of the population lives below the poverty line”. To the economic crisis was added the Covid-19 pandemic. Lebanon is now going through a second wave of contagion.

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd have immediately set to work. “Since the day after the explosion many of us, together with several young volunteers, went to the accident site to help, to clean the houses from the rubble and to talk to the people, says Sister Assaf. “Many of them were also venting the suffering that they were already suffering before August 4.

Assitence, the one brought by the nuns, on two fronts.
“We have also opened the doors of our center, the dispensary of St. Antoine – explains Sister Assaf – in our health care center we have distributed many medicines, especially those for cancer treatment, which have begun to become scarce. A very necessary support, according to the religious woman, who denounces: “The government’s response is ineffective.

Sister Assaf, however, highlights the great collaboration that is emerging in these difficult days. “We are working together with other congregations, with numerous ngos, Lebanese and foreigners”.

Collaboration that is also reflected in society, characterized by deep divisions. The nun states that in the country “18 different confessional communities live together, and then there is a large number of Syrian refugees, in turn divided between Christians and Muslims”.
The difficulties, however, are uniting the Lebanese, accustomed, emphasizes Sister Assaf, “to fall and rise again every time, from the civil war until today.

The reference is to the conflict that between 1975 and 1990 saw different souls in the country confront each other, causing more than 150,000 deaths between civilians and military.
This time Sister Assaf tells of people “rushed from all regions of the country to give a hand to Beirut”. The basis, perhaps, for a possible evolution of the whole society. “It’s clear that we can unite, work together” says the nun.

“But we must learn to do it not only in front of a catastrophe, but also in our daily life, transform it into normalcy”.

Among the many gestures and acts of solidarity and union she has seen in recent days, Sister Assaf remembers one in a particular way: “A group of nuns and Christian and Muslim volunteers were helping the owner of a gymnasium destroyed by the explosion to clean up and rearrange what was left of the store. Spontaneamnteamnte, some Muslim boys from the Tripoli region joined them”. According to Sister Assaf, the Lebanese of this area, in the north, “are known to be closed, shy”.

On that occasion, however, they started to work together with the others. “It may seem a simple thing – says the nun – but for us it is more like a miracle”.