HANOVER, PENNSYLVANIA, June 5 — The chaplain for the Seton Route of the 65-day National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, Father Roger Landry, who in addition to his duties as Catholic Chaplain to Columbia University serves as the Vatican-appointed Ecclesiastical Assistant (National Chaplain) to the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need in the United States, has been praying for the needs and intentions of persecuted and suffering Christians with him as he travels with the Eucharistic Jesus across the country.
In the second week of the pilgrimage, he was praying explicitly for the needs of Pakistani Christians and recorded a video outside the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Hanover, Pennsylvania, asking for others to join him in those prayers.
The Basilica of the Sacred Heart, built in the early 1790s, was once the largest Catholic parish in the new United States of America.
In the video, Father Landry said he is praying for the Christians who suffer harassment, discrimination, and persecution in Pakistan, as a result of anti-blasphemy legislation and other means of state-sponsored discrimination, as well as harassment and worse by individuals and mobs who discriminate against the followers of Christ.
To put a human face on those for whom he is praying as he holds the Eucharist in his hands several hours a day on the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage Seton Route's 65-day journey from New Haven to Indianapolis, Father Landry said he is praying in particular Bryan Abraham Saeed, a seminarian in the Archdiocese of Lahore.
To become a priest in some regions of the world, like Pakistan, is an act of courage because it can occasionally be a death sentence.
Bryan told ACN: “A priest is a religious person who interacts with people of every religion in his territory. There is fear of becoming a priest, however, because a priest leads his people, and usually, a leader is attacked first. I have made up my mind to be ready for such sacrifices to follow Christ and spread the Kingdom of God.”
Fr. Landry is praying for Bryan, for all seminarians and priests in Pakistan, and for all those they serve.
He invites others to pray with him to the Eucharistic Lord that Bryan and his fellow seminarians will persevere in their vocations so that they may comfort Christ's people when they are faced with all the struggles they encounter when living the Faith: discrimination, the indiscriminate use of blasphemy laws against Christians, the increasing cases of abduction, forced marriage and forced conversions to Islam of women and young girls.
To find out more about the suffering Christians in Pakistan, Father Landry urged people to visit the website of Aid to the Church in Need USA.
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