III. ABIDING

I noticed a small chapel in the north of the cemetery. As soon as I entered it, I saw Christ. We were facing each other. Everything around me and inside me vanished. I was absorbed with Christ. He was standing there, having been crucified by some other people from a different place and time, but inflicted with some recent wounds as well. His right hand, the same one that had been pierced by a nail from the Cross, was hit by a shell fragment, and so was his chest.

I realised that Christ was being wounded and crucified again, this time by us here and now. He stood in front of us in order to protect us and take our wounds upon himself. By doing this, he became a part of us in our suffering.

Having knelt down, I started to cry and then, after a while, for the first time in my life, to say a prayer to Christ. I did not know a single prayer. Still, I was still praying :

“Hear my prayer, Oh Lord,

and with thine ears consider my calling: hold not thy peace at my tears.

For I am a stranger with thee: and a sojourner as all my fathers were....”

( Psalm 39/13, )

I prayed for Mokošica , Rijeka and Dubrovnik to be protected, for the people who have been forced out of their homes to return, for myself to be able to help and to know what I was to do and how to do it. I was praying all alone in front of Wounded Christ in that chapel at the Stara Mokošica cemetery. It was surrounded by the hills whose tops were occupied with some people deluded with evil and intent to destroy everything once again.

Nevertheless, I had a feeling that evil would not prevail. My hopes were aroused, my prayer was enabling me to get closer to God. I felt it was protecting me form danger, and I knew it was more powerful than destiny and capable of altering its course.

Wounded At The Cemetery Of Stara Mokošica


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