“Cease-fire”. Pope Leo’s appeal comes loud and clear “to those responsible for this conflict”. The pressing invitation, “on behalf of the Christians of the Middle East and of all women and men of good will” is that paths of dialogue are reopened. Violence can never lead to the justice, stability and peace that people are waiting for.”.
The Pontiff speaks of the “thousands of innocent people killed and the many forced to abandon their homes”. “For two weeks” he says at the Angelus prayer, «the people of the Middle East are suffering». Condemn him “attacks that hit schools, hospitals and residential areas” and renews his closeness to all those who have lost their loved ones. Concerned in particular about «the situation in Lebanon», he hopes «paths of dialogue that can support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious ongoing crisis for the common good of all Lebanese.”
In explaining the Gospel of the day, before the roll call, he had referred to the need for una «awake, attentive and prophetic faith» precisely «in the face of the many questions of the human heart and the dramatic situations of injusticea, of violence and suffering that mark our time”. Explaining the Gospel of the day, on the healing of the man born blind, he recalled that faith must help to open “eyes to the darkness of the world” to bring “the light of the Gospel through a commitment to peace, justice and solidarity”.
Faith, therefore, is not “a leap into the dark” or a “renunciation of thinking”, but, on the contrary, «helps us to understand «in depth the mystery of life». Faith opens the eyes and, in contact with Christ, opens them to such an extent that «the religious authorities insistently ask the healed blind man: “How were your eyes opened?”; and again: “How did he open your eyes?”».
«Faith”, continues the Pontiff, “is not an accommodation in some religious certainty that makes us look away from the world. On the contrary, faith helps us to look “from the point of view of Jesus, with his eyes: and a participation in his way of seeing”” and, therefore, asks us to “open your eyes”, as He did, especially on the suffering of others and on the wounds of the world”.
