Prayer of Bishop André PERRAUDIN for RWANDA
Lord Jesus, Eternal Priest, on this blessed day of my jubilee of sixty years of priestly life, including forty-three in the episcopate, I prostrate myself to your feet and, with all my being, I renew the promises that I made you at the time of the ordinations, the one as a priest “to live more and more united to you” and that especially as a bishop “to be attentive to the humble and to the little ones to help them”. I ask your forgiveness for my infidelities, my weaknesses and also my mistakes in the accomplishment of my holy ministry : Kyrie eleison.
I give you thanks for choosing me among the thousands of others to be your priest and your missionary bishop, especially in Rwanda. I thank in front of You this country that welcomed me with so much friendship and where I had the privilege to dispense your benefits for so many years, together with many other priests and missionaries, religious men and women, catechists and laity committed. It was a wonderful and unforgettable time in spite of turbulences and Sporadic events. Yes, thank you Lord for the Rwanda that You have entrusted to me. in spite of my unworthiness. I did not choose it. It is your Providence which, in its unfathomable designs, did it all. Alas! The infernal powers have raised and wanted to destroy your work. Rwanda has fallen into a drama unspeakable of ethnic and other divisions and hatreds. Thousands and thousands of victims, most of them innocent, have paid with their blood for this madness. evil. Among them are authentic martyrs of fidelity and charity. O Lord Jesus, You who “probe the loins and hearts”, have mercy on this people. beloved to whom I gave my life. Welcome into Your home all those who are dead, relieves all those who are still suffering either inside or outside of them. of the country, is everywhere raising prophets of reconciliation, conviviality and of peace.
All Rwandans, whatever their ethnicity or region, are your beloved children. Save them, consecrate them in truth and unity, as well as Thou You yourself asked your Father for your first disciples. Yes! that the Rwandans are one because most of them are Christians and, as was said one of your great saints, ”the brotherhood in Christ (in You) is greater than that of blood” (Saint Thomas: “Major est fraternitas Christi quam sanguinis”). It is my most ardent wish, it is my hope, it is my prayer, it is the gift. I humbly ask you, Lord Jesus, for my priestly jubilee. May the Virgin Mary, your Mother, Protector of Rwanda from the beginning, intercede, she also, close to You and Your Father for his beloved children!
Amen!
Veyras, March 25, 1999