Dr. Awn Al Khashlok was graciously invited for the second time to the weekly General Audience of Pope Francis on October 11th, 2017, accompanied by his wife Mrs. Mahasin Al Khashlok. The catechesis highlighted the importance of hope and its link to patience and attentiveness, to strive on when our lives become unchanging or difficult, ‘for no night is so long, as to make us forget the joy that comes with the dawn’.

They presented the Pope a Byzantine icon of Archangel Michael, who in Catholicism is often viewed as the angelic exemplary for the virtues of the spiritual warrior as well as being one of the two archangels mentioned in the Quran.