Dialogue

h1 class="western">Christmas Letter from Iraqi Kurdistan

Kirkuk, December 20^th, 2011

Dear friends,

Thank you again for the warm welcome I received this fall from the Swiss and Italian members of the associations of friends of our monastic community. It felt good to have you near. Many thanks also for your numerous expressions of solidarity in these turbulent times for the Middle East. Our website's statistics and our “inbox” that you are following us attentive, thank you! The Middle East, and especially Syria, really needs much prayer and solidarity. We are witnessing a continuous rise of violence, and we cannot but call with all our energy to non-violence and reconciliation.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2011

Mar Musa or Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi literally The Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian is a monastic community Syriac Catholic rite, situated near the town of Nabk, approximately 80 kilometers north of Damascus. Paolo Dall’Oglio SJ is the leader of this community and Sebastien Duhaut is an inmate of the monastery. Both Paolo and Sebastien tell Victor Edwin SJ about the present situation in Syria for Jivan. Read interview...

Dear brothers and sisters,

Peace, love, solidarity and reconciliation, from our Savior,

We deemed appropriate to write you about the service of reconciliation, because we consider it part of our sacred duty and charisma. We retain that, in the treatment of the current tragic situation, adopting any non-evangelical project or trespassing, for any reason, the ethnics of our Messiah, or the positions of his most pure Mother, or the tradition of the disciples and apostles in the original church, is forbidden to us.

Press release in conclusion of the 1 october 2010 about the

Week of spiritual jihad, through fasting, prayer

and sakina (God-inspired peace of the soul)

for reconciliation between the children of Mother Syria

at the monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi

Monks and nuns of the monastery dedicated themselves, with friends and a number of visitors from the vast Syrian mosaic, to fast and prayer. We met daily in the church to read the Gospel, recite the Quran and meditate on a selection of texts about non-violent activism for reform, through forgiveness, through a dialogue based on brotherly reciprocal listening, through the acceptance of difference without conditions. A large number of friends (people and organizations) from around the world joined us in spirit, which made us feel deeply in communion and unity before God.

Saturday, August 27^th 2011

1) First, we wish to thank all our friends for the great solidarity expressed towards our monastery and our country, in those difficult conditions that we can stand only with the help of your cordial prayers, the support of your commitment and the effectiveness of your gifts.

The 18^th of July 2011

Very dear friends,

In this letter we ask, by increasing importance, for money, commitment and prayer.

Let’s describe the whole situation, first.

Dear Friends,

 In the light of the Resurrection, the announce of peace from our Lord, His breath of reconciliation, in his body, the Lamb always slaughtered, and in the fertile wound of his heart, as we kiss his tortured hands and feet, we come to you to assure you that by the grace of God we stay strong in faith, comforted by hope and passionate with love during this tragic period of deep fermentation in our Arabic homeland and in this Muslim world which is our great concern in the name of the Church.