Pope John Paul II met with more than 6,500 pilgrims during his general audience on Ash Wednesday, March 5, and made another plea for world peace. Earlier the Holy Father had asked Catholics around the world to devote Ash Wednesday in a special way this year to fasting and prayer for world peace at a time when war is looming on the horizon.
“There is, then, a close link between fasting and prayer. To pray is to listen to God and fasting fosters this openness of heart,” the Pope pointed out. “We must ask God for a conversion of heart, in which every form of evil and every tendency to sin is rooted; we must pray and fast for peaceful coexistence between peoples and nations.”
The Holy Father ended his audience with a prayer entrusting this endeavor to Mary, Queen of the Rosary and Mother of Peace.
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