From today, Ash Wednesday, to the end of Lent, the Church in Europe will be “gathered around the Eucharistic Table to pray for peace”. The event, which involves all CCEE members (Council of Bishops’ Conferences of Europe), sees everyone “committed to organising and celebrating at least one Holy Mass with the intention to pray for the victims of war and to invoke from the Lord a just and sustainable peace, especially in the Ukraine and the Holy Land”. The “Eucharistic Chain means to provide – as explained by CCEE in a release – “an experience of communion and a visible sign of hope for the entire European Continent; a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving to better recognise that we are all brothers and sisters and to implore from God the end of war”. “In these days of suffering and illness, we renew our appeal to pray for the health of Pope Francis”, the Bishops of the entire European continent point out.