| Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register,
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 The Jesuits’ farm and retreat centre is the latest to post a “peace pole” to pray for peace on Earth. (Photo courtesy of Loyola House)
The Jesuit Ecology Project kicked off the month of June by erecting a peace pole on the farm property. The pole is one of more than 300,000 in 180 countries around the world.
The words “May peace prevail on Earth” are written on the simple wooden pole in 12 languages. The pole was placed near the retreat centre’s 14 stations of the cross, 12 stations of the world religions and 25 stations of the cosmos to put those words in the context of prayer, according to Ecology Project co-ordinator Marianne Karsh.
“Our tag line is ‘a place of peace,’ so it just seemed to fit,” Karsh told The Catholic Register.
Every year the farm welcomes retreatants from around the world, and Karsh hopes that many of them are inspired to pray for peace in their own language when they come across the pole.
“I hope that they look for the language of their homeland or their country and they feel welcomed,” she said.
The first peace Pole was erected in Japan in 1955 as a response to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. Poles have since been placed at the magnetic north pole, near the pyramids of El Giza in Egypt, on the border between Israel and Jordan and in the bombed out ruins of Sarajevo.
One of the languages on the Guelph pole is Tibetan, in honour of a visit to the Catholic retreat centre by Tibetan monks last summer.
“The connection with the Dalai Lama and his commitment to peace, it seemed exciting to put that language on,” said Karsh.
The other 11 languages on Guelph’s peace pole include English, German, Italian, French, Ojibwa, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Swahili, Korean and Hindi.
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Michael Swan, The Catholic Register |
| About the author: |
| Michael Swan is Associate Editor of The Catholic Register. He is an award-winning writer and photographer and holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University.
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