Call for an international prayer campaign for Burkina Faso, Niger and other regions in the Sahel during the Christmas period.
This is a translation of a letter requesting prayer for Burkina Faso, from the Bishop’s Conference in Burkina Faso.
“Your Eminence, dear friends of Aid to the Church in Need,
As you know, our country, Burkina Faso, and also Niger and several other places in our sub-region, are going through a critical period in their history, because of an unparalleled wave of terrorism that plunges many of our fellow citizens into mourning on a daily basis.
The situation has deteriorated several times throughout 2024, with residents in several cities and towns been attacked by armed groups that seek to spread chaos and fear by causing hundreds of deaths. There are more than two million displaced people, forced from their land and from their homes, who have lost everything and who are struggling to survive in appalling economic and health conditions. Christians are not spared, of course, nor are Muslims or followers of the traditional religion who pay with their lives for their refusal to bow to an ideology that they do not identify with.
All these victims, but also the military and security forces of our countries who are trying to curb the murderous madness, are heroes of peace, the peace that we wholeheartedly hope for in this Christmas season.
Christmas is a time of joy; it is the celebration of liberation, of the restoration of the ruins of Jerusalem. It is the moment when the proclamation of the Incarnation makes us live anew with Christ so that we may become in Him a new creation, a new work of His hands. This is the moment when we reject the old man with his deeds. It is the moment when we celebrate the majesty that has taken the form of humility, the strength that has taken the form of weakness. This is the moment when we call upon all of you, members and benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need, at the international headquarters in Königstein im Taunus, in Germany, and in the 23 national offices around the world, to ask you to raise your prayers with ours to the one called the Prince of Peace.
Prayer is for man the greatest of goods. It is primarily this good that we beg you to share with us. Pray that our weakness of today, the weakness that Christ took on when he was born, may tomorrow become the strength of Christ, the King of Peace. The Lord visited His servants by taking on the mortal condition in order to set them free. Let us therefore be in a great communion of joy and peace, in prayer. Despite misery, death and suffering, faith continues to carry us. Let us come to the aid of one another, beyond cultures and borders, certain that we are gathered around the manger of the newborn: the choir of angels has sung on our earth a song from heaven and has proclaimed the new age, the glory of the Father and the joy of peace for the race of men.”
Bishop Laurent Dabiré
