Let us pray with the students of Kirkuk, led by Bishop Youssif Mirkis
These Christian students from Mosul fled their homes in the Nineveh Plains in 2014 when ISIS arrived. Bishop Mirkis took them in at Kirkuk so they could continue their studies. Now that Mosul has been liberated, they face many challenges in returning to study there.
“Our Father in Heaven,” to You, to whom our praise ascends, we implore You through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, and through the Holy Spirit, to come to the aid of Your children in Mesopotamia, especially the young people who hold the future of this biblical land in their hands.
We—young people, schoolchildren, students, and young families—like Your Beloved Son, were born in the East, and we wish to live in the land of Abraham and the Prophets. Together with the faithful of the Eastern Churches, we wish to be, in Iraq and Syria, heralds of the brotherhood that comes from God.
Supported in our current trials by the prayer and fraternal assistance of the universal Church, we hope that the message of mercy conveyed to the world by the prophet Jonah will always be proclaimed to the people of the plain of Nineveh.
Lord Jesus, our Savior, You who love all people and desire their happiness, grant that as we encounter each of the inhabitants of this land “between the two rivers,” we may always say to You, together with them, in all truth and with one voice: “Our,” for that is how the prayer Jesus taught us begins—“Our Father”—for therein lies the source of brotherhood.
Amen
