PASTORAL LETTER
“Prayer for Justice and peace
over Our Land”
September 1983
To the Auxiliary Bishops, Parish Priests, Parochial Vicars,
the Officers and Members of Parish Organizations,
and the Catholic Faithful in the Archdiocese of Manila:
We live in troubled times,
times of uncertainty where people are asking a lot of questions but so far
getting no satisfactory answers. We want to know what the Christian response
to the situation should be.
It is prayer.
Starting September 19 and
every day thereafter, we should all say a special prayer so that justice and
peace may prevail over the land.
At noon everyday, we should
all pause from our labors and, for at least five minutes, take time out to
pray for our country and our people. We should all recite the Angelus, asking
Mary’s intercession so that we may once again experience peace and savor
justice. We should then say a prayer specially selected from the Missal and
then end with some invocations so that the Holy Spirit may enlighten the minds,
open the hearts and strengthen the will of the members of the Fact-finding
Commission looking into the assassination of Senator Benigno
Aquino, Jr.
At noon everyday also, at
the start and at the end of the special prayer, I ask that the church bells
be rung twenty-one times.
I urge everyone in offices,
schools and homes to have radios ready so that they may tune in on Radio Veritas
(846 khz-AM on your dial) which will lead our joint prayer for
justice and peace in the Philippines.
Let us raise our arms, not
in anger, but in supplication. And let us lift our voices in a collective
and earnest plea to Christ, through His Blessed Mother, so.that
the shadow blighting our nation may be removed and so that our people may
recover from the trauma now afflicting their consciousness.
Let us remember that more things
are wrought by prayer, specially your prayer, than the world dreams of.
(SGD.) + JAIME L. CARDINAL SIN, D.D.
Archbishop of Manila
