"Ukraine suffers and deserves peace," says Pope on Day of PrayerThe text of the Consecration of Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is as followsThe President of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences, Archbishop Gintaras Grušas of Vilnius, has called on all European Bishops' Conferences to hold a day of prayer on September 14 to invoke peace for Ukraine.
This petition for peace promoted by the European bishops has centered its gaze on Eucharistic Adoration. The very motto of the day "Kneeling before the Eucharist to invoke peace" is an invitation to parishes and temples to carry out acts of Eucharistic adoration asking for the cessation of war.
The date is not accidental as the Bishops' Conference of the Roman Catholic Rite in Ukraine has declared 2022 as the Year of the Holy Cross. In the letter that the Ukrainian bishops published on the occasion of this year they pointed out the "painful way of the cross", which the Ukrainian nation is going through "in which innocent people suffer. (...) Now more than ever we understand Jesus Christ on his way of the cross, we understand his suffering and death".
This Year of the Holy Cross will end with a solemn Holy Liturgy and Way of the Cross with the participation of all Roman Catholic bishops of Ukraine on September 14, 2022, during the European Day of Prayer for Ukraine.
A few months ago, during Lent 2022, the CCEE coordinated a Eucharistic chain in which each day we prayed both for the victims of the covid pandemic and for the war in Ukraine.
