By Ibrahim Faltas *
Holy Christmas is approaching. The Advent journey prepares us for the coming of the One who brings peace.
In the Holy Land, there is a deep expectation for peace, and the desire to achieve it calls for answers.
For years, and especially since Oct 7, we have spoken and written about violence that generates death and destruction, and about revenge that breeds hatred and suffering.
It seems to be a vicious cycle in which the darkest aspects of humanity prevail – a path closed to solidarity and understanding, and incapable of breaking the chain of evil that produces yet more evil.
News reports and images from Gaza and other war-torn lands reveal the physical and moral suffering of countless innocent and defenceless people.
The immediate reactions are marked by outrage and by the emotional involvement of much of humanity.
A desperate situation
For some time now, the threshold of tolerable violence has been exceeded. In Gaza, we have witnessed multiple causes of death and destruction: bombings, clashes, explosions, and the lack of essential goods, medical care, and medicines.
Countless appeals, along with mediation efforts by Popes and other heads of state, have failed to change or resolve this desperate situation.
The aid that has entered Gaza, and the limited possibility of evacuating those in urgent need of medical treatment, have amounted to little more than a drop in the ocean.
What drives a human being to persist in causing suffering? How can feelings of helplessness be overcome through concrete acts of assistance and solidarity?
After so many words and so much suffering, there appears to be a growing indifference to the evil of war.
Fear seems to prevent people from calling out those who could intervene but do not. It becomes difficult to recognise that silence makes us all accomplices.
Physical and highly visible walls have been erected around Gaza and the State of Palestine in the West Bank to prevent access by so-called “unauthorised persons”: humanitarian workers, volunteers, journalists, and international observers.
Around the war zones of the Holy Land, it appears that a barrier has also been built to block any path to truth—truth that could enable justice to save lives and restore human dignity to an exhausted population.
What or who is preventing humanity from helping desperate people forced to live in inhuman conditions?
Is their weakness frightening? Does their despair not disturb our consciences?
Who chooses to prioritise economic interests? Who continues to increase military spending that brings death and destruction?
Who treats easy targets of violence—men and women crushed by grief, children, the elderly, the powerless, and the sick—as enemies?
Why is there a refusal to feed, to heal, to provide warmth, when resources are abundant and readily available?
Why not offer a chance at life to those who depend on medicines that are easily accessible just beyond a crossing or checkpoint?
Does the cold of a third winter in Gaza, without the warmth of solidarity, leave hearts frozen in indifference?
A holy child who has come to reconcile
These unanswered questions are addressed to everyone, without distinction, because we are all responsible for this inhumane situation. Yet there is an answer: a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, born in the cold darkness of a stable, who brings peace to hearts without peace.
He is the Holy Child who has come to reconcile his brothers and sisters, to uphold the innocent and the vulnerable, and to affirm that love of neighbour is the only truth.
Let us celebrate the Child Jesus by remembering, every day and not only during the Christmas season, the message that comes from that stable in Bethlehem—
a message that remains true and relevant more than two thousand years later.
Peace is not an illusion, but a choice for life. Peace is not merely a word that loses its meaning once spoken.
Peace is courage – the courage to help and to bear witness to the Saviour’s truth.
* Father Ibrahim Faltas, Franciscan friar of the Custody of the Holy Land. – Vatican News
