In his homily this Sunday, from the Santa Agatha church in Miami, United States, Monsignor Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua, exhorted that “we must not resign ourselves to the fact that the wicked and the tyrants arrogantly intimidate with their speeches liars and cynics.
Based on the biblical story of the book of the prophet Habakkuk, who called out to God for injustice and violence, the Catholic hierarch said that “the prophet teaches us that we cannot be indifferent to the tyrants who impose their sick will of power with the force of repression and violence.
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“The prophet Habakkuk teaches us, above all, that in those moments we must turn our hearts to God to protest before him. Yes, protesting before God is also praying,” explained the prelate.
The importance of prophetic prayer
He also indicated the importance of prayer before God in order to get out of the oppressions of tyrannical powers. “Habakkuk reminds us that prayer is not just supplication and petition. Habakkuk teaches a very peculiar way of praying: the prophetic prayer».
“Praying is not just asking, much less crossing our arms and expecting everything from God. To pray is also to fight with God in the night of his absence and to shout before Him breaking his silence », she explained.
He added that praying “is presenting ourselves before God carrying in our hearts and in our voices the oppression of the people, the suffering of the victims and the anguish of feeling that history is moving forward and the wicked continue to triumph.
“Prophetic prayer consists of crying out to God, whom we do not feel close and who seems indifferent to the march of history, but who we know and believe can listen and attend to us,” he stressed.
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In reference to the sociopolitical crisis that Nicaragua is experiencing at the hands of Daniel Ortega’s regime, Báez affirmed that “in the darkest and most painful moments, one must not sink into solitude. Like Habakkuk, the prophet in solidarity with his oppressed people, like Jesus on the cross victim of unjust power, we must learn to cry out to God from the contradictions, conflicts and problems of life».
The religious exhorted that, like the prophet Habakkuk, people should wait for God’s response to their prayers. “If it takes time, wait for it, because it will come without fail. The wicked will succumb without remedy; the righteous, on the other hand, will live by his faith », Monsignor quoted the biblical passage of Habakkuk 2: 2-4.
They will end up “defeated those who impose themselves in a tyrannical way”
Referring to the dictatorships that oppress the people, the bishop emphasized that “the time will come when the cynical tongues of the powerful, arrogant and liars will be silenced forever, the time will come when those who impose themselves in a tyrannical way will end up defeated.”
«This moment will come, the Lord tells Habakkuk and, if it takes time, “wait for it, because it will come without fail” (Hab 2,3). Waiting is not easy, because waiting is not just letting things happen. Biblical hope is active. Waiting is collaborating with God so that history changes, “said the priest.
Regarding the demand for justice, he stated that “the just, the believer, must persevere in their justice, shouting and claiming before God, but waiting with faith, without despair, trusting in the fidelity of the Lord’s promise, because “the the just shall live by his faith” (Hab 2:4)».
«The just man shouts and claims before God, but without ever giving in to the temptation to renounce his own justice to act with the arrogance and violence of which he is a victim (…) We are just and live by faith when we take ourselves into history is serious, we suffer the suffering of the victims». he concluded it.
In other news: “I demand to know where and how Bishop Álvarez is”, the demand of Monsignor Báez to the Nicaraguan regime
Báez’s preaching comes after the virulent speech of dictator Daniel Ortega during the 43rd anniversary of the Police, who cataloged the Catholic Church as “a perfect dictatorship,” and said that they cannot speak of democracy when even the pope himself is imposed by a religious group. Likewise, he again accused the Nicaraguan bishops and priests of orchestrating the alleged “coup d’état” of 2018.
“An institution like the Catholic Church using its bishops to stage a coup, since when do they have the morals to talk about democracy? Who chooses the bishops, the pope? If you are going to be democratic, begin to elect the priests of each community with the vote of the population, otherwise they are all taxes, it is a tyranny, a perfect dictatorship,” the president stressed.
