As the Good Friday has just passed, worldwide Christians meditated upon the cross of the Christ, which symbolizes the unconditional, self- lowering and self- emptying love of the Lord to sinful man. Christians nowadays may have tasted a little pain and suffering of the cross in facing persecutions. In the season of celebration for the Easter, in many areas in Europe, are clouded by warnings of terror attacks and chilling images from Iraq presaging conflict with Islam.

In Rome, the world center of Catholicism, the Pope John Paul II has asked Catholics to pray for world peace and he called for the US-led occupying force in Iraq to be turned into “a peacekeeping force, under UN auspices.?Just as last year, the Pope again warned that the US-led invasion of Iraq would drive a wedge between Muslim and Christian cultures.

The controversial film “The Passion of the Christ?which has been condemned as anti-Semitic by some Jewish organizations is now showing in the cinema in Rome, so authorities feared they may be a target for extremists.

London and Paris are also in high alarm of terrorist attack in the wake of a fresh warning from Britain's top police officer that the country was "now in a state of real danger", while in Paris public transport was disrupted by a CIA alert about a possible bombing similar to that in Madrid.

One month ago, the train bombing in Madrid has left a lot of painful effect to the city, now the wounds are still not healed. Even worse, the city is further shaken by the news that seven suspected bombers had left a video warning that "rivers of blood would flow" unless Spanish troops leave Iraq and it went on to recall "the Spanish crusade against Muslims" in 1492.

In Kosovo, 117 Christian churches have been burned in recent months. One monastery was also burned to the ground, and 500 Christians have been killed or wounded and had their homes and businesses destroyed by rioting Muslims.

Southern Baptist leader Dr. Richard Land is a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He says recent Muslim uprisings against Christian Serbs in Kosovo indicate that the situation there is not getting better.