I’ve been a supporter of Aid to the Church in Need for a long time, often moved to tears by the stories they tell from the front lines, where the Church is poor, or persecuted, or both.
This latest of their initiatives strikes me as brilliant in so many ways.
With a reminder from St. John Vianney — “there is nothing so great, as the Eucharist! Put all the good works in the world against one good Communion; they will be like a grain of dust beside a mountain” — ACN is asking us:
Will you go to one extra Mass and offer it for a persecuted Christian?
The charity is inviting Catholics around the world to go to one extra Mass to pray for one of the 200 million Christians who face persecution for their faith, and even risk death to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.
Read more:
Are there more martyrs now than in the early Church?
“It is time for us to re-discover that the ‘most powerful force in human history is prayer joined to sacrifice,'” the charity says, quoting St. John Paul II.
Imagine the immense power of our prayers offered for our persecuted brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ, imagine how we can renew our faith in the power of the Eucharist where “violence is transformed into love, and death into life …” – Pope Benedict XVI.
Aid to the Church in Need offers this simple 3-step way to participate:
- Go to a Mass you wouldn’t normally go to. If you already go on Sundays go to an extra Mass in the week. If you don’t go on a Sunday, go then.
- Offer the Mass for all persecuted Christians or a particular person being persecuted or a country, e.g. North Korea, Syria, Nigeria, etc.
- Share your #Go2Mass post – Take a selfie outside the Church and share your post using #Go2Mass
Then, if you’d like to learn more about Aid to the Church in Need and the work they do — or, importantly, to join forces with them by financially supporting their work — check out their international website here. They also have various regional websites, for example: Australia, UK, USA.
And today we celebrate...