For an audio version of Archbishop Dolan's homily from the April 6 Mass for Peace and Protection, visit this link.

To Colleagues in Ministry:

(This is a tense time, with our country at war. I am grateful for the many ways our parishes and schools are responding with appropriate prayer and catechesis. On Sunday, April 6, I addressed the topic at the Cathedral, and I want to share it with you.)

As Dr. Bernard Natharison puts it, "Prayer is the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of the faithful." We gather for the greatest of all prayers, the Eucharist, on this Sabbath morning, with our country at war, to hold up to the Lord our courageous men and women who have been called into active service, to beseech the Lord's protection over them and consolation upon their anxious family and friends, and to intercede with the Lord of all nations and peoples for the heavenly gift of PEACE.

No one more ardently prays for an end to war and a return of peace than our men and women in uniform, so we unite with them today in prayer, asking the Lord to be their shield, and longing for that day Jesus promised in this morning's gospel when all will be drawn to Him, the Prince of Peace.

We know from the story of our salvation that, whenever the people of Israel were at war, they would turn to God for help and strength; we know from God's Word that, whenever the Chosen People trusted their own might more than the Lord's, they lost; we know from the Bible that, whenever the people of Israel were ruled by arrogance, greed, and a desire for power, instead of by humility, compassion, and justice, they were in jeopardy.

In our own country, too, war has dropped us to our knees, as we recall the Father of our Country in prayer on his knees at a time of desperation, desolation, and defeat at Valley Forge. War can serve as a national examination of conscience, judging our motives and our ways against that "law of God planted in our hearts" spoken of by Jeremiah the prophet in this morning's Liturgy of the Word.

Just a day after the war broke out in Iraq, I was at a parish for one of our lenten communal reconciliation services, and afterwards a wonderfully memorable woman approached me in tears. "My grandson, a marine, has been called to active duty, and will be in the lead units. Will you pray for him?" It was at that moment I decided to have this special Eucharist to pray for all our troops in battle, especially those from our archdiocese, names entered into our book of solidarity in the atrium as you were invited to do, names more importantly inscribed on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Then this woman whispered something to me nothing short of profound. "And, Father, somewhere in Iraq is a grandmother just like me worried about her grandson who's in their army. Do you think it's okay if I pray for him and for her, too?"

"You bet it is!" I replied, reminded of Lincoln's humble recognition of the inscrutability of God in his Second Inaugural Address: "Both pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other . . . the prayers of both could not be answered, that of neither has been answered fully."

So war brings dying . . . and here we gather in prayer two weeks before the great feast that reminds us that dying brings rising. We ask the Lord that the dying of our brave men and women under our flag be sparse; He will look more benevolently upon our plea if we ask that the dying of any of His children not occur, and that this war help bring, rather, the dying that the Lord prefers: dying to violence, terrorism, greed, injustice, arrogance, and oppression.

By His dying on the cross and rising from the dead, Jesus won that war, and He invites us to share in the victory.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan