PRAYERS FOR PEACE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 242, 1 July 1918, Page 9

PRAYERS FOR PEACE

THE POPE'S JIOTU PKOPRIO. On Saturday last the Feast of Saints 'Peter awl Paill, in all the Soman Catholic churches throughout the world, by direction' of His Holiness (lie i'ope, masses and prayers were oll'ered up for the- re-establishment of peace among all countries now engaged in war. In all thu city churches services, from an early honr were well attended, and visits wcro made by the members of the Catholic community t« the churches during the day oud nntil'late in the evening. It is estimated that throughout the world on that day one million masses were offered up for the intention recommended by the Pope. Never before. Soubtless, has such 'an appeal been made by a Pope- for peaco and concord amongst Christian nations. In explanation of the motu proprio cf Pope Benecuct XV tho "New Zealand Tablet" of lasl week printed the following:—"Since it was God's Finder which 'traced the furrows that divide the human race info nations, ;t is each man's duty to love his country. . But since wo all couie from the hands of one Creator, and are all the offspring of a Father's love, we are all equally His children. His Son, our Brother, died for all of us, anil set up a Church not for the Latin, or the Celt, or the Saxon, or the Teuton, or the Slav,, but for all the nations of the earth. She cannot be appropriated by any one nationality. If in a sense she is a foreigner to them all, that very fact makes her a foreigner to none. Unity is her mark; unification her work; and. if the struggle of races that should be brothep is ever a difficulty and sorrow to their Mother, it yet becomes the witness of her unifying powers and a triumphant proof of her divine claims. ' "It- would be hard to find in tho long roll of : history a more, impressive instance of this badge of unity than the call to Catholics from the Heavenly ' King's perpetual Viceroy to join in brotherly.-ptayer, for .peace and the : answer that will bo made to it next- Saturday, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. - For the past four years some '200 million Catholics have been locked in the grip of war, but at tho bidding of -one to whom they owe homago they will atop to pray for themselves, for one another, -and 'for a desolated world. 'It will be the first Pentecost ngain—tho Catholic peoples of tho world without exception moving their lips in prayer nt the invitation of the still living vo"ke of Peter. From tho four winds the broath of sacrifice'will go up to the Great High Priest in one eternal tongue from the ■ hearts of the Supreme Shepherd some 60 Cardinals, 2000 Bishops, and 250 thousand priests. Peter-folk, to the number of 500 million', holding imspilt and unsullied' tho Peter-faith that binds them together, and thinking for tile moment Only of-that link of love and trust which gathers' them' as children round their mother, will pray as they have never prayod before for the speedy return of charity and concord among the nations."