Prayers for Christmas: Life and Health

Massacre of the Innocents

On this Feast of the Holy Innocents, the Church remembers the boys under the age of two near Bethlehem who were killed in Herod’s fury.

Two thousand years later, innocent lives are still lost in massacres and genocides around the world.

Javier, a friend of returned missioner Kathy Snider, was wounded in a massacre just outside of his village of Santiago Ixcan at the height of the violence of the Guatemalan civil war in the early ’80s.

Today he shares his prayer with us:

“My prayer for the New Year is that God will grant us more years to live and have good health for me and my family because life and health are the most important things we have.” 

As a result of his injuries, Javier still sufferers from anxiety, headaches and gastritis. Last year he fell out of a tree, injuring his back and leaving him unable to walk for months. He is healing, but unable to lift heavy things. Javier and his wife Rosa have six children.

It is our hope that our missioners may continue to be instruments of peace by serving as healing presences and bridges of reconciliation.

Help support our peacekeepers through a gift this year.