Baghdad – Today, many Christians in Iraq at the invitation of the Chaldean Patriarchate, join the fasting observed by their Muslim fellow citizens during the holy month of Ramadan.
The initiative, proposed to the faithful and all Christians a few days ago with an official statement by the Chaldean Patriarchate, intends to be a sign of solidarity with all Muslims to fast and pray together, asking for a gift of peace and stability of the Country and the entire Middle Eastern region.
“In this way”, says to Agenzia Fides Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I “we just wanted to propose a Christian gesture: as Christians, we are confident that fasting and prayer, also shared with others, can work miracles, while weapons and military interventions only kill”. The initiative has provoked reactions that the Patriarch calls “paradoxical: from outside, some of our Christians who live abroad were shaken and they even criticized us. From many Muslims, however, I received overwhelming gratitude. Yesterday a Muslim woman with the veil came to the office to thank me. She kept saying: we will all be very grateful, because we are all Iraqis”.
As it is usual in the practices of the Christian spiritual tradition, fasting and prayer are accompanied by gestures of charity: “Today we will offer, through Caritas Iraq, a contribution of $ 50 thousand in favor of the refugees of Fallujah,” reported to Fides the Primate of the Chaldean Church , “and tonight, in a parish, we will symbolically offer Iftar to a group of Muslim fellow citizens, the evening meal when Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast at sunset”.
Source: Fides News
