Priests, ambassadors of reconciliation and bearers of peace in the world

To the People of God and to all men of good will,

In this month of October, we pray for priests, that they may be ambassadors of reconciliation and bearers of peace in the world.

When we look at a priest, what do we see? A man consecrated to God to carry out the works that He entrusts to him. And among them there is one that Saint Paul names clearly: "And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:18). And he adds: "So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us" (2 Cor 5:20). The priest is, by vocation, an ambassador of reconciliation and a bearer of peace.

In October 2026, the whole Church is called to pray for peace, for in Lourdes, on September 27, Pope Leo XIV invited all the faithful to pray the Rosary throughout the entire month, so that wars may cease and peace may be established among peoples in conflict. In welcoming this request, we turn our gaze to the history of the Church, which is a living memory, and in it we recall men consecrated to God who lived the priestly ministry in times of war and hatred, leaving the witness that a life offered to God in an oblation of love builds peace. Let us contemplate, then, three of these witnesses, from different times and places: that of Father Manuel da Nóbrega and Saint José de Anchieta, that of Father Alec Reid, and that of Saint John XXIII.

In Brazil, around 1563, the Tamoios, with the support of the French, rose up against Portuguese colonization. Father Manuel da Nóbrega decided to go to meet them to help contain the revolt, taking with him the young Jesuit José de Anchieta, who knew the Tupi language. They arrived at the village of Iperoig, today Ubatuba, on the northern coast of São Paulo. So that the negotiations could continue, Anchieta offered himself as a hostage, while Nóbrega departed in search of the peace agreements. For about five months among the Tamoios, living as a captive, under threat of death and witnessing the execution of prisoners, he made a promise to Our Lady to write her a poem and, according to tradition, composed its verses in the sands of the beach. Nóbrega and Anchieta were mediators between the two peoples, and from the offering of their own lives the truce of Iperoig was born. Anchieta was ordained a priest three years later and, for his great work of evangelization, became known as the Apostle of Brazil, being canonized in 2014.

More than four centuries later, in Northern Ireland, an armed conflict set those who desired union with Ireland against those who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom, dividing Catholics and Protestants. According to a survey by the University of Ulster, this violence left more than three thousand six hundred dead over the period from 1969 to 1998. In Belfast, Father Alec Reid, a Redemptorist, secretly carried messages between John Hume, a nationalist leader who advocated the political path, and Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin, a party linked to the IRA, in the hope of putting an end to the conflict. On March 19, 1988, two British soldiers drove into a republican funeral procession and were attacked by the crowd. Father Reid lay down on the ground between them, trying to protect them, but the soldiers were taken away and shot dead by members of the IRA. He tried to revive one of them with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and, given the severity of the wounds, gave him the last sacraments. The photograph of the priest kneeling, his face stained with the soldier's blood, went around the world. Only years later did it become known that he was carrying in his pocket an envelope containing a peace proposal, also stained with blood. The talks he helped to sustain created, over time, the conditions for the 1994 ceasefire.

In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. On October 25, Saint John XXIII, who had opened the Second Vatican Council two weeks earlier, addressed a message to the rulers over Vatican Radio, delivered beforehand to the United States Embassy and to the representatives of the Soviet Union in Rome, in which he implored them not to remain deaf to the cry of humanity and to continue in dialogue. The following day, the appeal was published in Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, and on October 28 Nikita Khrushchev announced the withdrawal of the missiles. The Pope's message helped to open a path to peace and, six months later, he wrote the encyclical Pacem in Terris, addressed to all men of good will.

None of these men had weapons or political power, but all possessed something far greater — a profound love for God and for souls. Saint José de Anchieta offered his own life as a guarantee of the word given, Father Reid placed his own body between the soldiers and the crowd, and Saint John XXIII pledged the authority of his word before the two greatest powers of the time. In them was fulfilled the word of the psalmist: "Some rely on chariots, others on horses, but we on the name of the LORD our God" (Psalm 20:8). The priest does not act in his own name, but as an ambassador of Christ. He places himself at the disposal of all to communicate the graces of the Redemption and goes out to meet those who have become enemies in order to reconcile them with God and with their brothers. Configured to Christ as Priest and Victim through the sacrament of Holy Orders, he becomes an instrument of his reconciliation and peace in the world. This is what we saw in these witnesses, for they did not limit themselves to fulfilling a mission but, when it was necessary, knew how to offer themselves in an oblation of love to God and to souls. That is why we all need holy priests, aware of their identity and vocation, and priests need people who pray for them to help them in their mission.

October is also the month of the missions. On the second-to-last Sunday, the Church celebrates World Mission Day, instituted by Pope Pius XI one hundred years ago, and the Church in Brazil dedicates the entire month to missionary animation. We begin the month, on October 1, with the feast of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, whom Pius XI proclaimed patroness of the missions alongside Saint Francis Xavier. She never left the Carmel of Lisieux and, even so, helped missionary priests with her prayers and sacrifices. At the age of fourteen, on a pilgrimage to Rome, she spent a month in the company of many priests and understood, as she herself wrote, that, if their sublime dignity raises them above the angels, they are nonetheless weak and frail men. That is why she wrote that she had entered Carmel to save souls and, above all, to pray for priests. Saint Thérèse teaches us that mission is not measured by the distance traveled, and that the hidden offering of everyday life, made of prayers and small sacrifices known only to God, sustains those we love and, in a special way, priests.

Let us pray with the prayer for priests traditionally attributed to Saint Thérèse:

O Jesus, eternal Priest, keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart, where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Your Sacred Body. Keep unsullied their lips, daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and everlasting crown. Amen.

In this month of October, I invite everyone to join in the request of Pope Leo XIV by praying the Rosary daily for peace among peoples in conflict. And, as the proper intention of our apostolate, let us pray for priests, that they may be instruments of reconciliation wherever there is division and hatred. In Lourdes, while Bernadette prayed the rosary, the Virgin passed the beads along with her and joined in her prayer at the Glory Be. So too we, when we pray the Rosary, do not pray alone, but with Mary, who leads us to give glory to God. To pray for peace and for all, Saint Paul teaches, is good and pleasing to God (cf. 1 Tim 2:1-3). Let us unite to the Rosary, each day, the prayer for priests, and let us choose a priest to present to God, calling him by name, until the end of October. With generosity, let us offer Holy Mass and Communion for this intention. As the Holy Father asked, let us accompany our prayer with concrete gestures of penance and mercy and with the commitment to promote dialogue and reconciliation in our families and communities. And, like Saint Thérèse, let us offer a hidden sacrifice, a fast or a renunciation that no one sees, for priests, that they may be ambassadors of reconciliation and bearers of peace in the world. The peace asked for by the Pope is not built only in great agreements between nations, but begins in each heart reconciled with God. It is this peace that priests offer today, often in silence, in the confessional, at the altar, and alongside families and communities wounded by division. What we saw in Iperoig, in Belfast and in Rome continues to happen, every day, in the ministry of every faithful priest. May the Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace, intercede for us and for all priests.

Fraternally in Christ,

Deacon Mario Cardoso