Hungary Marks Start of a Year of Prayer

BUDAPEST, Hungary, JAN. 24, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The primate of Hungary has opened the country's Year of Prayer, aimed at the spiritual renewal of this nation's people.

Cardinal Peter Erdo, the country's 53-year-old primate, opened the Year on at Mass on Jan. 15, before the feast of St. Margaret of Hungary (1242-1270).

During this year, two key dates of Magyar history will be commemorated.

First is the victory in August 1456 in present-day Belgrade of the Christian armies that defended Hungary and Central Europe against the attack of the Ottoman Empire. The second is the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution against the Soviet regime.

In the open-air celebration Jan. 15, attended by many faithful and held on the island in which St. Margaret spent most of her life, Cardinal Erdo asked: "How could this spiritual program begin in a more worthy way if not by looking at the example of St. Margaret, who, living in prayer and abstinence, prayed to God for forgiveness of her own sins and those of others, asking God for reconciliation among men?"

The cardinal explained the meaning and importance of individual and communal prayer.

Purification

"With prayer, we seek the will of God," he said. "To pray for something increases our responsibility and obliges us to look in the mirror of God's will. And in this mirror we must revise our personal and common intentions."

"Therefore, through prayer and thanks to it, there is purification, an embellishment of the spiritual life, of the mentality, of the reasoning and perhaps also the rebirth of hearts. We are convinced that from spiritual rebirth stem new and purer actions. And, above all, the Christian seriously believes that prayer can be heard by God."

The cardinal recalled that, before Hungary's entry in the European Union, the nation's consecration was renewed to the Virgin Mary, patroness of Hungary.

The next event of the Year of Prayer will take place in Budapest on Feb. 11, on the World Day of the Sick, with a common prayer in the chapel of the National Institute of Oncology.