By Linda Bordoni
Pope Francis travelled south from Baghdad to the ancient city of Ur to hold an historic interreligious meeting on Saturday, the second day of his Apostolic visit to Iraq.
The set-up was stark, but poignant: a simple, tent-like structure, with white drapes to protect participants from the sun, was set up next to Abraham’s house. In the background, the incredibly well-preserved remains of a 4,000-year-old Sumerian temple with adjacent residential complex and palaces known as the Great Ziggurat of Ur.
After the meeting, the Pope gathered in prayer together Muslims, Jews, representatives of Iraq’s Christian Churches, and members of Iraqi religious minorities, including the Yazidis and Sabaeans, who together invoked the Lord for peace, reconciliation and the strength to rebuild the conflict-ravaged nation.
This is their prayer:
Almighty God, our Creator, you love our human family and every work of your hands:
As children of Abraham, Jews, Christians and Muslims, together with other believers and all persons of good will, we thank you for having given us Abraham, a distinguished son of this noble and beloved country, to be our common father in faith.
We thank you for his example as a man of faith, who obeyed you completely, left behind his family, his tribe and his native land, and set out for a land that he knew not.
We thank you too, for the example of courage, resilience, strength of spirit, generosity and hospitality set for us by our common father in faith.
We thank you in a special way for his heroic faith, shown by his readiness even to sacrifice his son in obedience to your command. We know that this was an extreme test, yet one from which he emerged victorious, since he trusted unreservedly in you, who are merciful and always offer the possibility of beginning anew.
We thank you because, in blessing our father Abraham, you made him a blessing for all peoples.
We ask you, the God of our father Abraham and our God, to grant us a strong faith, a faith that abounds in good works, a faith that opens our hearts to you and to all our brothers and sisters; and a boundless hope capable of discerning in every situation your fidelity to your promises.
Make each of us a witness of your loving care for all, particularly refugees and the displaced, widows and orphans, the poor and the infirm.
Open our hearts to mutual forgiveness and in this way make us instruments of reconciliation, builders of a more just and fraternal society.
Welcome into your abode of peace and light all those who have died, particularly the victims of violence and war.
Assist the authorities in the effort to seek and find the victims of kidnapping and in a special way to protect women and children.
Help us to care for the earth, our common home, which in your goodness and generosity you have given to all of us.
Guide our hands in the work of rebuilding this country, and grant us the strength needed to help those forced to leave behind their homes and lands, enabling them to return in security and dignity, and to embark upon a new, serene and prosperous life. Amen.
