This year, the ACN Ireland Week of Witness will be held between Sunday the 19th and Sunday the 26th of November. The Week of Witness is an invitation to Christians across the island of Ireland to stand in solidarity with and bear witness to the heroic example of our persecuted brothers and sisters in Faith across the world.
Week Of Witness | Red Wednesday 2023
During the ACN Week of Witness, ACN Ireland, with the gracious and prayerful assistance of your dioceses and parishes throughout the country, will also hold during this time the Red Wednesday Prayer Vigil. Red Wednesday is an opportunity for the faithful to gather as a community of witnesses (even if these days this is only possible electronically, we can always unite spiritually in Christ!) and pray not only for persecuted Christians – but also for the persecutors of Christians.
Thus, throughout the ACN Week of Witness and on Red Wednesday itself, you and your fellow parishioners can be a vibrant example of the beauty and dignity of Christian culture as well as a witness to the reality of the historical and current oppression and martyrdom of Christian peoples globally.
This year, Red Wednesday will be held on the 19th of November.
Stand in solidarity with, and bear witness to the heroic example of, our persecuted brothers and sisters in Faith across the world.
ILLUMINATING
Your Church or school in red to show the world that the sacrifice and suffering of the persecuted and martyred Church is an ongoing reality.
WEARING
A red tie, scarf or scapular as a mark of the blood lost by Christians in defence of our Faith.
PRAYING
for the suffering and persecuted Church at the hours of the Angelus, 1200 and 1800, and during Holy Mass, asking your Parish Priest to consider giving his homily on the theme of persecution and martyrdom in the Church.
BLESSING
Oneself in public when having a meal, passing a graveyard or a Church.
ATTENDING
Attend a Red Wednesday Prayer Vigil.
DONATING
To ACN Ireland to help in our work for persecuted Christians globally – your donations constitute a powerful corporal work of mercy, and when you order a Mass Offering through ACN Ireland, 100% of your offering goes directly to help support a priest provide pastoral care and ministry to the suffering Church.
ACN Ireland, as a Pontifical Foundation, is part of the Church in a most profound way – to help our Church heal our world.
Being present with and for the most vulnerable of God’s people is vital to achieving this, no matter how perilous the environment is. Through the Church’s pastoral care, through the Holy Sacraments, and through the heroic witness of Christian martyrs, God’s Grace provides the Church – and the world – with the means of bringing the Light and Love of Christ to places and people where before there was only darkness and hate.
ACN is blessed to have Our Lady of Fatima as Patroness of our work for the suffering and persecuted Church. Our Lady’s prophetic messages of Fatima told of a Church that would suffer greatly in the future, and so it has come to pass that we now find a Church where violent hostility to Christian teaching, culture and even identity has been normalised, if not encouraged, by many governments, corporations and institutions.