Pray for peace in the Holy Land after horrific attacks

There is a dialogue in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring which has been running around my mind during my time in Jerusalem:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I’ve been involved in more than 30 pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and occasionally someone trips and falls, or has a difficult day or two after inadvertently drinking water from the River Jordan.

But nothing could have prepared me for the experience of the past few days in the Holy Land. Our pilgrim group of 52 souls were celebrating Mass with spiritual director Fr Conor McDonough OP in Bethany – where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead – when phones began to buzz with news of incoming rockets from the Gaza Strip.

I will confess to not being overly nervous, I’ve been here many times and experienced this before. But, we quickly organised our pilgrims for the short trip back to Bethlehem and the West Bank where they would be 100% safe. We returned quickly, and tried not to alarm people.

Horror

By this stage, a story of epic horror was emerging as it soon became obvious that hundreds of Hamas militants had crossed the border into Israel and were murdering and kidnapping people with apparent impunity.

What emerged on our television screens could only be described as diabolic, and I hope – dear reader – that you were not exposed. Suffice to say, the capacity of human beings to mistreat and ignore the inherent human dignity of one another is a painful reminder of the presence of evil in our world.

The following day, we moved our pilgrims to the north of Israel, to Nazareth, with the gentle hand of our intrepid guide the legendary Bethlehemite Louis Michel.

Mercifully, our pilgrims were never in any danger and we were able to continue our progress in the north around the Sea of Galilee with minimum inconvenience.

Of course, the question that no-one knows the answer to is what the consequences of the weekend’s horrific incidents will bring. Already the Holy Land is now in a state of war, many people will lose their lives and there will be widespread destruction as Israel has vowed to dismantle the capability of the Hamas terrorist organisation that has ruled the people of Gaza since 2007. Of course, the people of Gaza, most of whom are peace-loving, have no choice in their despotic rulers. Frequent protests against the movement are crushed with ruthlessness.

Local people here worry that it will not be a short war, and that will be very bad news for everyone. All we can do is pray, pray for the peace of Jerusalem that in the words of St John Paul II God will grant peace to the land he chose as his own.

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