Rome (Fides Service) - As in previous years, during Holy Week the S. Egidio Community and the Union of Religious Superiors General in Rome are organising ecumenical prayer services to invoke peace for the world and to commemorate those who gave their lives for the Gospel in recent years. On Tuesday 15 April at 5.30pm at the Basilica St Mary Major the prayer meeting will be presided by Cardinal Francis Stafford, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
On the same day similar services will be held in other Italian cities Genova 6pm San Lorenzo Cathedral, Naples 6.30pm the church of Saints Severino and Sossio, in Savona 8.30pm, church of Sant'Andrea and also in Germany, at Aachen 7pm in the cathedral and in Spain in Barcelona 7.30pm at the Basilica of Saints Just i Pastor Plaça Sant Just .
"In these difficult times the powerful and non violent testimony of Christian martyrs encourages us to ask God with ever greater evangelical boldness, the precious gift of peace - says the S. Egidio Community statement-. Many of them lost their lives in countries at war and in situations of conflict because they did not renounce their work to promote reconciliation and build peace. We have an enormous debt towards all these men and women, lay or religious, priests or bishops, whatever their denomination, who preferred to die rather than give in to the logic of violence, out of love for a life of faith, a life in which love for the Church and love for suffering humanity is inseparably interwoven with the teaching of the Beatitudes. Together we pray that the fruits of the martyrdom of so many witnesses of the faith may be seeds for new Christians, able to render eloquent witness in the present day to the extraordinary and choral message of Easter". SL (Fides Service 14/4/2003 EM lines 21 Words: 316)