Day of Prayer for Victims of Abuse and Violence

Today there continue to be women who suffer violence. Psychological violence, verbal violence, physical violence, sexual violence. It’s shocking how many women are beaten, insulted, and raped. The various forms of ill-treatment that many women suffer are acts of cowardice and a degradation of all humanity. Of men and of all humanity. The testimonies of the victims who dare to break their silence are a cry for help that we cannot ignore. We must not look the other away. Let us pray for women who are victims of violence, that they may be protected by society and have their sufferings considered and heeded by all.

Pope Francis February 2021

View The Pope Video for February – for women who are victims of violence. HERE

Readings Mass of the Day

Isaiah 58: 1-9. ... Is this not the sort of fast that I favour: to open unjust fetters, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? ...

Matt 9: 14-15. ... The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast...

Hymn

"Prayer of St. Francis – Make me a Channel of your Peace." Listen HERE

Come to me all you who are wearied and burdened and I will give you rest. Matt 11: 28-30

Youtube versions of Matt 11:28.  

"Come to me" – Gregory Norbet. HERE

OR

"Come to me, all who are weary" – Dan Schutte. HERE

OR

For reflection you could play the following video. "Come to me" by Dan Forrest. HERE

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said,

‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ John 7:38

Prayer

We Must Not Look the Other Way: 

Let us pray for women who are victims of violence, that they may be protected by society and have their sufferings considered and heeded by all.

Lord hear us.

A simple prayer, based on material from the Pontifical Commission 2016

Heavenly Father, You love and care for all your children especially the smallest and
most vulnerable. We entrust to you the lives of the many children and vulnerable adults who have been abused, and whose trust and innocence have been destroyed.

Help us to hear their cries of pain and to take responsibility for so many broken lives. 

We pray that within their communities and families they may find understanding and support so that with the help of your grace their wounds may be healed and they
may again know peace. 

Grant this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who shared our weakness in all things but sin, and lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. 

Amen.

Source: https://nzcatholic.org.nz/2016/12/16/prayer-day-abuse-victims-set/

Where, after all, do universal rights begin?

In small places, close to home –

so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.

Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college she attends; the factory, farm or office where he works.

Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.

Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.

Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Excerpt from Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous speech at the presentation of “IN YOUR HANDS: A Guide for Community Action for the Tenth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

March 27, 1958. United Nations, New York