Today marks two years since Hamas militants attacked communities in southern Israel, resulting in approximately 1,200 deaths, with 251 people taken hostage. We continue to pray for all who were affected by that terrible day of violence and for the remaining hostages to be returned safely. We are horrified and heartbroken by the overwhelming brutality against the people of Gaza which has taken place since that date.
The following is a reflection to be offered by Sr. Annie Killian, OP, recently named as the vice chair of the Pax Christi USA national council, at an interfaith prayer service to be held this evening at the University of Notre Dame.
This evening, we gather to lament the ongoing violence in Gaza and the West Bank, recognizing that the past two years extend the long Nakba, 77 years of occupation and dispossession for the Palestinian people. More than 67,000 mothers, fathers, children, and elders have been martyred in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Unarmed civilians are being bombarded, starved, and forcibly displaced by the Israeli Defense Forces under the Netanyahu administration. And we in the US repent that our government has supplied the bombs, surveillance technology, and political cover for the Israeli apartheid regime to carry out mass atrocities. We are horrified by the utter failure of humanity to stop this genocide.
In the Catholic Christian tradition, October 7 is the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. It’s a day of special devotion to Mary, a Palestinian Jewish woman. She raised her Palestinian Jewish son Jesus to announce the liberation of his people, who were at that time living under Roman colonial occupation. He was brutally executed by the imperial state. In his life and death, Jesus identified with the most abandoned and oppressed of God’s children. Surely, we find Jesus today “under the rubble” with his crucified people (Rev. Isaac Munther), who have been forsaken by world leaders and powerful nations—but not by God.
And we find Mary, mother of Jesus and mother of all humanity, standing at the foot of the cross, her heart pierced with sorrow. Mary’s profound compassion for Jesus’ pain indicts our indifference to Palestinian suffering. Mary stood steadfast at the foot of the cross and endured her son’s horrific death. Her compassionate and courageous example calls us to bear witness to the horrors being perpetrated in Gaza and to keep vigil.
The rosary is a prayer to say in times of utter desolation, when the Spirit groans within us (Romans 8:26). The devotion reminds us to persevere in prayer and act in solidarity with the Palestinian people, joining millions around the world who are resisting the genocide. When praying the rosary, we make the same petitions over and over, asking for daily bread and protection from evil. This is what we want for the people of Gaza: bread and deliverance.
Let us pray: Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory Be… Free Palestine!
Pax Christi International held a small online prayer service today in commemoration of the October 7, 2023 attacks. The theme of the service was, “The power of darkness is strong. Let silence speak.”
Pax Christi International Co-President Sr. Wamuyu Wachira offered a reflection on Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”
In the silence and quiet, you are a God of the grieving widow, the dying and suffering children whose innocent cries and lifeless bodies cry to you, our compassionate and just God, the life giver, who renews the broken and bleeding spirits with the spring of living and healing blood and water from your bleeding side. You were pierced by a lance that by these wounds all can be healed.
Creator, compassionate and healing God, we bow before you in humility today, united as your children, to ask for forgiveness for our lack of compassion, for remaining silent as we watch the untold atrocities fill the land of Israel and Palestine; a people denied a place to call home due to the occupation, denial of freedom and justice, killings that have left a people traumatised, a land crying out for the innocent shot down in thousands, held as hostages in retaliation, denying them of freedom and causing their families untold suffering and anguish. We plead for your other creation that too face the wrath of an unfeeling, brutal world.
The following prayer was offered in both Arabic and Hebrew by members of the Parents Circle/Families Forum.
A prayer for peace in the world, and for wounded Gaza
O God of peace and mercy, we stand before You today, our hearts heavy with pain yet our spirits filled with faith and hope.
We cry out to You from the depths of wounds, from the silence of graves, from the groans of mothers in Gaza, and in every place tormented by the horrors of war.
Lord, teach us how to be instruments of Your peace. Make us bridges, not walls – light, not darkness – hearts that beat with compassion, not hatred.
We pray for the children robbed of their childhoods, for the homes reduced to rubble, for the souls suffocated before they could dream, and for the people who wait in silence for Your justice and peace.
O God of hope, grant the leaders of the world the courage of mercy instead of vengeance, the wisdom to choose life over death, and the faith to believe that justice is not built on weapons, but on dignity, truth, and humanity. Today, we lift up to You Gaza… Wounded, yet standing tall; burdened with destruction, yet never losing hope.
Protect its people, heal their wounds, and fill their hearts with a hope that does not fail.
We also pray for every land in pain: in Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Ukraine, and every corner of this world.
May Your peace reign on earth as it is in heaven. And may we, gathered here today, be a voice for justice, an echo of love, and the beginning of a new time.
Amen.
Cover photo: Statue of Mary in the courtyard of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.