‘We are a people who have known what it is to live with fear and even terror’

Last Sunday the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus marked the end of the Christmas period.  Jesus moved from his private life – the carpenter son of Mary and Joseph – into his brief public life: the three short years of his ministry. We are told, “while Jesus after his own baptism was at prayer, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily shape, like a dove and a voice came from heaven, You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.”  That love, that favour, did not spare Jesus great pain, though he was the Son of God.

Our faith brings us perennial new beginnings which are redolent with hope, yet each new beginning comes in a world in which there is so much pain and suffering. Some of it affects us directly, some does not.

I have been slightly involved recently in matters arising from the internal conflict in Iran and the war in Israel and Gaza.

Terror

The people of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been subjected to a regime of terror, torture and mass executions since 1979, enforced by the murderous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), proscribed as a terrorist grouping by many countries including Canada, Sweden and the US.  Last year politicians in both Ireland and the UK called for the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, to no avail.  Meanwhile in the last four months alone 700 people have been executed, among them 34 women and seven children. The National Council of Resistance in Iran, led by Maryam Rajavi works bravely across the world, despite the endless threats and attacks by the IRGC, trying to bring freedom to Iran and its people. One day Iran will be free but her people need support from the rest of the world to achieve that.

The suffering in Israel as a consequence of events following the attacks by Hamas in October 2023, in which some 1200 people were killed, thousands  were injured and 254 were taken hostage by Hamas, continues. Hamas continues to attack Israel.  Israel is determined to eradicate Hamas. The conflict has spread. Some 45,000 people are reported to have died in Gaza since October 7.  The terrible destruction is shown nightly on our televisions.

Since October 7, 80 members of their two families have been killed in Gaza”

I encountered one affected family just before Christmas.  Their  experience has brought the situation in Gaza very much alive to me.  Dr Omar Alshaqaqi and his wife Dalal live in Belfast  with their two children. Dr Alshaqaqi works at the Cancer Centre in Belfast City Hospital.

October 7

Since October 7, 80 members of their two families have been killed in Gaza. On December 4 Dalal, who had been unable to speak for many months to her mother and sister who were in a displaced persons camp in Gaza, was able to do so. As they concluded their conversation, so that Dalal could go and collect her children from school in Belfast, she heard a bomb explode. When she returned they learned that her mother and 34 year old brother had been killed and that her three sisters and two of her three brothers had been seriously injured. They are now in Gaza and unable to get hospital treatment for their injuries; there is no anaesthesia, no medication and no pain relief.  The border with Egypt remains closed and they have no way of getting out of Gaza. It is essential that the Egyptian border is opened again to let them and so many like them out to a safe third country, a process which could be managed by the UN, so that the burden does not fall on Egypt alone.

As everywhere else, whilst there is pain, there is also great individual courage and goodness in Gaza. We know that some 450 Catholics and Orthodox Christians are living in the compound of the last Catholic Church in Gaza, the Church of the Holy Family, looked after by religious sisters and the parish priest Fr. Gabriel Romanelli. The people do what they can to help their Muslim neighbours. The sisters and priest could have left early on, but chose to stay on with their people.

What those sisters and that priest are doing for those helpless people in Gaza is what Jesus has done for the whole human race by becoming one of us”

Our parish priest, Fr Michael reflected on the courage of those who could leave but chose to stay, in the context of coming of Jesus, and his baptism, saying “ this is what human solidarity is all about. It is a commitment to be there for other people in their hour of need. It is being on the side of people when they need us most. It’s about going the extra mile and sacrificing ourselves for others. What those sisters and that priest are doing for those helpless people in Gaza is what Jesus has done for the whole human race by becoming one of us. He has taken our side – he has made a commitment to be here for us in an act of human solidarity that has cost him everything.”

Sacrificing

This sacrificing ourselves for others is not something we talk about very much.  Yet sacrificing ourselves is actually giving of ourselves and we all know just how true it is that in giving, on so many occasions, we receive so much more than we can ever give.  So what can you do? What can I do?  It will depend on our individual circumstances and if we listen carefully to the Spirit we will come to discern what each of us can and should do.

Governments must be encouraged by us to act in these perilous situations, to sanction and proscribe organisations, to work for peace even when it seems hopeless.

Terror on a scale such as that in Iran, Israel or Gaza  is hard to imagine, yet the individual effects of conflict can be understood in Ireland, north and south, for  we are a people who have known what it is to live with fear and even terror.

For some that pain continues today.  It continues for all the families of those whose loved ones vanished as a consequence of what happened to them in Northern Ireland”

I read recently of 65 men who were murdered and disappeared during the War of Independence In Ireland – their bodies have never been recovered.  For their families, like the families of the disappeared during the NI troubles, each day must have brought its wrenching pain as they struggled to find out whether their loved ones were alive or dead. For some that pain continues today.  It continues for all the families of those whose loved ones vanished as a consequence of what happened to them in Northern Ireland.  That pain continues too, for so many people like Dr Omar and Dalal and their children.

Let us be generous in giving of our time in deeds and prayer, living like Jesus, carrying  in our hearts and souls the individual suffering being experienced not only here in our parishes but also in these distant places, and trying to bring comfort where we can.