From January 13 to 16, a copy of the miracle-working icon "Salus Populi Romani" ("Salvation of the Roman People") arrived at the Church of St. Peter and Paul the Apostles. This precious gift of Pope Francis to Russian Catholics was delivered by Father Dietmar (rector of the church in Kuibyshev) from Novosibirsk.
According to tradition, this image was painted by the Apostle Luke himself in Jerusalem. Representing the Blessed Virgin as resolute and tender at the same time, it is called "Salus Populi Romani" ("Salvation of the Roman People"), because in 590 it was through it that Rome was granted the miracle of liberation from the rampant pestilence after St. Gregory the Great carried this icon in a procession through the city. Iconographically, this image combines the Greek type of Hodegitria ("Guide", from Greek hodeghètria - "She who shows the way", i.e. Christ) with the type of Glykophilousa (glykophilùsa - "She who loves tenderly").
On this occasion, Fr. Dietmar consecrated the houses and apartments of the parishioners of the church with a copy of the icon, before which during the consecration prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary were recited, requests, petitions and thanksgivings were offered. In this event, brothers and sisters felt how the Lord Himself, whom Our Lady brings to us, visits everyone who opens the doors of his heart to Him. This light cannot be compared to anything, His divine love heals and gives peace, which is so necessary for all of us.
On Thursday was the farewell to the miracle-working icon, everyone had the opportunity to kneel before this incredibly beautiful icon and give a heart to the Virgin who knows and loves her children, and most importantly Mary knows the way to our savior. Let us walk with her in our daily life.
Immaculate Virgin!
We come to you with a heart divided between hope and fear. We need you, our Mother! But first of all, we want to thank you because you, as befits you, are silently observing our city, which today lavishes you with flowers to show you its love.
In silence you watch over us day and night: over families, with their joys and sorrows - you know them well; over places of study and work, over institutions and authorities; over hospitals and nursing homes, prisons and people living on the streets; over parishes and all the communities of our Church.
We thank you for your invisible and constant presence that gives us comfort and hope. You know that we need you, Mother, for you are the Immaculate Conception.
Your person, the very fact of your existence reminds us that evil has no first and no last word; that our ultimate destiny is not death but life, not hatred but brotherhood, not conflict but harmony, not war but peace.
When we turn to You, we feel strengthened in this faith, which is sometimes tested by the vicissitudes of life.
And you, Mother, turn your eyes full of mercy to all the peoples who are oppressed by injustice and poverty and tormented by war. Mother, look at the tortured peoples who are once again caught in a spiral of violence. Today, Blessed Mother, we bring many mothers under your gaze who grieve as you do. Mothers who mourn for their children killed by war and terrorism. Mothers who see them embark on journeys of desperate hope. And mothers who try to free their children from the shackles of drug and alcohol addiction, and mothers who accompany them through a long and difficult illness.
Today, Maria, we need you as a woman, to entrust you with all the women who have suffered violence and are still victims of violence, in this city, in Russia and all over the world. You know them all, one by one, You know their faces. We ask you to dry their tears and the tears of their loved ones.
Help us to walk the path of enlightenment and purification so that we may overcome the violence that has taken root in our hearts and minds, recognize and confront it, and ask God to free us from it. Show us, Mother of God, the way of repentance, for there is no peace without forgiveness and no forgiveness without repentance.
The world changes when hearts change; and everyone should say: starting with mine. But only God can change the human heart by His grace: the grace into which you, Mary, were accepted from the very first moment. The grace of Jesus Christ our Lord, whom you gave birth to according to the flesh, who died and rose again for us, and to whom you point us again and again.
He is salvation for every person and for the whole world. Come, Lord Jesus!
May your kingdom of love, justice, and peace come.
Amen.
(Not an official translation with additions: Prayer in the Plaza Española, December 8, 2023 by Pope Francis)
