Lambasting what he called "intolerable brutality" against Christians in Syria and Iraq, Pope Francis on Sunday, March 1, called for the faithful to practise love that "transforms all." Said the pontiff: "In reality, love has the capacity to transfigure all. Love transforms all."

Pope Francis on Sunday again lambasted what he called the "intolerable brutality" being perpetrated against Christians in Syria and Iraq, leading pilgrims in St. Peter's Square in a moment of silence for those being persecuted because of the faith.

What do we mean when we say that we make a sacrifice? I have sacrificed my career for my children! I sacrifice a lot for my job! Love demands that we make many sacrifices! Sometimes we must sacrifice life itself for the sake of integrity! Christ sacrificed himself for our sins! The Eucharist is a sacrifice!

From what is common in all these expressions we can extract Webster’s definition of a sacrifice: The surrender of something of value for the sake of something else.

Fears are growing for the safety of more than 100 people taken captive on Tuesday, February 24, as the extremist group Islamic State seized Christian villages in Hassake Governorate, northeast Syria.

Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana, who works in support of persecuted Christians in the region, received a telephone update on the situation from a contact in Hassake city about midnight on Tuesday.

Fr. Youkhana relayed the latest information in a message sent to Catholic agencies, including Aid to the Church in Need, early yesterday, February 25.

Extremism was not absent on the day when Cain killed his brother Abel. But today it is persistent. Humanity finds itself face-to-face with new and rising waves of extremism. It is a two-fold war. The first of which is military battle which depends on political, military and sovereign decisions of the participating countries. The second field is intellectual whereby this war extends far beyond the military one. In our beloved country we experience the two wars and the two battlefields.

The news was announced by from Aid to the Church in Need. A woman has been decapitated and two men were shot dead. There is no other information regarding the other victims

Vatican Radio reported the news. The Nuncio to Damascus, Mario Zenari, says “the civil conflict needs to be resolved but at the same time the advance of this Caliphate needs to be halted”

Syro-Catholic archbishop, Jacques Behnan Hindo, confirmed the news, adding that “more than a thousand Christian Assyrian and Chaldean families [have] fled”. The CNN reports that jihadists are about to publish a video message in which they threaten to kill the hostages.

Before a brutal civil war engulfed Syria, the country was testament to the religious and ethnic diversity of the Middle East. Arabs of different faiths, Kurds, Armenians, Assyrian Christians and others lived side by side, embracing a rather durable Syrian nationalism.

Assyrians living on the banks of the Khabur River in the north-eastern part of Syria are being targeted by extremists. A boy has been killed. “We feel abandoned” says Archbishop Hindo.

The brutal murder of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya at the hands of ISIS last week is shining a light on the reality faced by many of Egypt’s Christians on a daily basis.

“These 21 victims, they were not the first and they will not be the last. There is a flowing river of Christian blood in the Middle East,” said Mina Abdelmalak, one of the organizers of a D.C. candlelight prayer vigil outside the White House on Ash Wednesday.