Monday, May 7, 2018

Honoring Mary in Iraq

From Aleteia:
The meeting was organized by Fr. Roni Momika, who was ordained a priest while living in a refugee camp after fleeing Qaraqosh in 2014. Fr. Momika is the pastor at St. Ephraim church in Qaraqosh, where he runs a women’s support group, which draws nearly 800 women weekly. He explained to CNA that, “This meeting is to empower women.” He added that the goal was to “rebuild women in the spiritual side, in the biblical side and in the psychological side.”

It is a long road to rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, much of which was burned beyond repair. One obstacle they face is the sheer magnitude of the destruction, while another is a gross lack of funding. According to Fr. Momika, this lack of funding is of little consequence, since their reconstruction needs to begin with Iraq’s women:
“Everything is difficult here and we want to rebuild the woman before we rebuild the houses,” he said.
“If you rebuild the woman, you can rebuild the children, and when you rebuild the children, you can rebuild the family, and after that we can rebuild the community here in Qaraqosh,”
The three-day assembly featured lectures, videos, Mass, and time for the community to interact. They also commissioned the writing of a new icon of Mary, in which she is depicted wearing the traditional garb of women from Qaraqosh. On the final day of the gathering Youhanna Boutros Moshe, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Kirkuk, and Kurdistan, celebrated mass and led the crowd in a procession to the city’s cathedral. (Read more.)
Share

No comments: