Sister Maria of Nazareth has committed herself to an extraordinary mission. The Argentine nun from the Institute of the Incarnate Word has been living in Aleppo, Syria, for the past two months.

She has been ministering to a traumatized Christian community in the former million-strong metropolis in the north of the country, which has suffered some of the worst violence of the three year-old civil war.

Previously based in the Gaza Strip, Sister Maria has seen her share of violence.

The entire affair surrounding the disappearance of Fr. Hanna Jallouf and his parishioners is a snapshot of the kind of life Christians are living in Syria, caught as they are in the midst of a propaganda battle

It is the most precious gift given to a person
to keep the wheel running……
It is rooted in person’s beliefs…….
It grows despite of being stepped on…....
It shines in darkness of reality…………
****
Hope looks like a wild flower…
It remains strong even in desert..
with shortage of water..

A Franciscan parish priest in northern Syria is in the hands of Jabhat al-Nusra militia and there has been no news of him since the kidnapping. The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land reported the news.

A language that facilitates “dialogue with the world”, “graduality” as an attitude which takes into consideration the difficulties that can separate real families from the Christian ideal, the “long, personalised and also severe” path of preparation for the marriage sacrament, embracing remarried divorcees (“the Eucharist is not the sacrament of the perfect, but rather of those who are on the way”). These are some of the topics that emerged in the Extraordinary Synod on the family which kicked off yesterday in the Vatican. Pope Francis is present at all the meetings.

With extremists flying the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) less than an hour down the road, the future of one of the last Christian communities in the Middle East is at grave risk of assimilation or annihilation.

“Divorced and civilly remarried persons belong to the Church” but in the case “of a (consummated) sacramental marriage, after a divorce, a second marriage recognized by the Church is impossible, while the first spouse is still alive.” In any case, “what is being discussed at this synod of an intense pastoral nature are not doctrinal issues, but the practical ones — nevertheless inseparable from the truths of the faith.” This is how the Synod’s Relator General, Cardinal Peter Erdö – who is also President of the Hungarian Bishops’ Conference as well as President of the Council of European E

More than half (106 bishops) of the almost two hundred individuals participating in the Extraordinary Synod on the Family which opened on Sunday, October 5, in the Vatican hail from Asia, Latin America, Africa and Oceania. It would be very short-sighted of us to therefore focus our attention exclusively on hot issues affecting European societies and Churches which are facing the challenge of secularism, to the detriment of the challenges and problems faced in other parts of the world.

The "issue of the Christian Arabs" has always been the main concern of His Majesty the King. In addition to the historic initiatives which Jordan hosted and founded--to become conspicuously global in today's world where religion has a say in large and minute affairs--His Majesty’s address at the United Nations this year has had resounding global media reverberations. The Christian Arabs are an integral part of the fabric, even if this Arab fabric is torn apart, as His Majesty said: “Arab Christians are an integral part of our region’s past, present, and future."

This morning, October 2, Francis began a three-day meeting in the Vatican with Apostolic Nuncios to Middle Eastern nations and Superiors of the Secretariat of State and the Roman Curia, including the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.