LIVESIMPLY MESSAGE:
Holocaust Memorial Day is marked this week, on Friday 27 January 2023 and the theme this year is ‘ordinary people’.
We are invited to think about the millions of ordinary victims of persecution and genocides in countries such as Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. We are also prompted to think about how easy it is for ‘ordinary people’ to become perpetrators.
Equally, there are many examples of ‘ordinary people’ who become heroes and heroines by their unselfish, and often heroic, actions during persecutions. We are so blessed not to be facing the systemic hatred that many people, young and old, still have to endure.
Let us pray for a world where such horrors are overcome, and do whatever we can on a daily basis to challenge prejudice and discrimination, and to promote peace.
Pope Francis reminds us: “Saint Therese of Lisieux invites us to practise the little way of love, not to miss out on a kind word, a smile or any small gesture which sows peace and friendship. An integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness.”
