Looking through the window from inside the church known as Dominus Flevit, you are overwhelmed by the city that lies beneath you. This church, designed in the shape of a teardrop, is the traditional site where Jesus stopped, looking over Jerusalem and wept over it, saying, If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace.”
Just as there was no peace then, there continues to be no peace now. The ultra-right, convinced that all the land you can see and even more belongs to them, and in various rampages attack Palestinians, the people who were left in the land when the Roans deported the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the second century.
Palestinian Christians far no better for they also are being ruthlessly attacked. Taybeh, the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank, has been enduring a wave of attacks and intimidation by Israeli settlers, who have set fire to agricultural lands, cars, and the walls of an ancient church; put hateful and threatening graffiti; released livestock into the village, and added numerous military checkpoints at the entrances to the town.
Prayer for the Day
Crying to God, we ask, why will they not let us alone,
For we have not waged war but only care for our sheep?
Looking to the Lord, we bemoan the violence against us,
For we have only tried to live in peace with our neighbors.
But we see only hate and threats about us from those,
Who think th land belongs only to them.
In the name of the One who calls for peace,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
In my opinion, this [the war] seems to be just a pretext to exert more pressure on the Palestinian communities, because we see Israeli soldiers carrying out incursions every day in the West Bank, and they have even been filmed supporting settler attacks against Palestinian villages and towns.
George Akroush, Director of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Even in the worst moments, like this atrocious war that is being carried out across the Middle East, one must seek the God of peace in the depths of our hearts, in our neighbors, in works of charity, in doing good, in praying and praying more.
Father Gabriel Romanelli, Pastor, Holy Family Church, Jerusalem
Hear this, o elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land!
Has such a thing happened in your days, or the days of your ancestors?
Joel 1: 1