On July 3, 2016 a car bomb attack in a busy Baghdad market decimated a shopping area in the neighborhood where many of our Iraqi Dominican sisters and brothers live and work. The Dominicans in the United States sent this letter to express our care and concern.
Please continue to pray with us for safety, stability and peace in Iraq.
July 2015
Dear Dominican Sisters and Brothers in Baghdad and throughout Iraq:
The Dominican Family in the USA wants to assure you that we hold all of our Iraqi sisters and brothers in our prayers, especially in these days following the terrible car bombings in the Karrada and Shaab neighborhoods in Baghdad.
We know that St. Raphael’s Hospital, run by the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation, is in the vicinity where these horrible acts of hatred were carried out and that the ministries and homes of the friars and the St. Catherine of Siena sisters are not too far away. Our hearts weep with all who have lost loved ones in yet another act of incredible and senseless violence. We worry that perhaps some of you may have lost friends in that bombing.
As you may know, the Dominican Family around the world will join hands to pray a novena in solidarity with all of you. From July 29-August 6 we will unite spiritually with you as we remember the second anniversary of the exodus from Nineveh Plain.
Through this novena we want to say again to the world that “Peace is possible.” Let us once again place our trust and hope in Christ, the Prince of Peace. We pray that you will know that you do not walk this path of suffering alone. Following in the footsteps of Jesus, and united with with St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena and all of our Dominican saints, we cry out with one voice: “Let there be peace.”
Speaking to the Sant’Egidio Community in Rome, Pope Francis reminded us that, “The courage of peace gives the courage of hope…to all those who suffer because of war.” Let us help each other to put this hope and peace into practice each and every day.
Your sisters and brothers of the Dominican Family in North America
