Praying for peace
Last week, having pointed out that social scientists in Israel and Palestine are capable of identifying compromises acceptable to their peoples, I closed by praying that their work be heeded (“Opinion polling for peace,” 10/21/23).
Last Wednesday, Oct. 25, happened to be the annual feast of Our Lady of Palestine, patroness of Palestine, whose shrine is in the Soreq Valley, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This feast was established in 1927 by the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and was approved by the Holy See in 1933; here, “Latin” refers to Europeans in the time of the crusades, not to the language.
The present Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, overseeing Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Cyprus, is Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who got his red hat just last Sept. 30. At the feast, taking an even-handed stance, the cardinal said that “peace requires granting Palestine a clear national standing and urged both sides to cease hostilities. He offered a lengthy spiritual reflection on passages of the Gospel, telling faithful to have the courage to let feelings of anger, hatred, and resentment be replaced by prayer, forgiveness, and a desire for peace” (“Jerusalem Patriarch condemns Hamas attack, Israel bombing in Gaza,” by Elise Ann Allen, cruxnow.com, 10/25/23).
But such sentiments were absent from the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, which failed to adopt a unified position on the conflict: the United States and Britain vetoed a Russian resolution to call for a complete ceasefire, and Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates vetoed a US resolution calling for a humanitarian pause to allow aid. (Of course, a “ceasefire” and a “pause” are not the same.)
Then Pope Francis called for Friday, Oct. 27, to be a day of prayer, fasting, and penance for peace. Prayer “is perhaps the main thing we Christians can do at this time,” Pope Francis said, reflecting on the Sunday Gospel reading, “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (also cited by Allen on 10/25/23).
What can we Filipinos do? We can pray, and we do. In the latest wave (2017-22) of the World Values Survey of 100+ countries, 55 percent of Filipinos said they prayed several times a day—not as high as in Indonesia (83) and Malaysia (61), which are predominantly Muslim, but much higher than in the US (26), Spain (20), Ukraine (10), Russia (8), and China (0) (“Are prayers answered?” 4/15/23).
In the 2018 religion survey of the International Social Survey Programme, the percentage of Filipino adults who pray daily is 83 percent, the highest among the 33 countries included. Compare that to 75 in Turkey, 67 in the US, 35 in Spain, and 29 in Japan (“Most religious, most prayerful,” 4/10/2021).
Don’t discount divine justice. Personally, I take comfort from stories of the saints. For instance, here is the end of Herod the Great, who had ordered the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem, according to Josephus the historian (“Complete Works,” Book I): “[T]he distemper seized upon his whole body, and greatly disordered all its parts with various symptoms; for there was a gentle fever upon him, and an intolerable itching over all the surface of his body, and continual pains in his colon, and dropsical turnouts about his feet, and an inflammation of the abdomen, and a putrefaction of his privy member, that produced worms. Besides which he had a difficulty of breathing upon him, and could not breathe but when he sat upright, and had a convulsion of all his members, insomuch that the diviners said those diseases were a punishment upon him …” And here is the end of Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great: “The judgment of God came upon Herod, Herodias, and Salome, even during their earthly life. Salome, crossing the River Sikoris in winter, fell through the ice. The ice gave way in such a way that her body was in the water, but her head was trapped above the ice. It was similar to how she once had danced with her feet upon the ground, but now she flailed helplessly in the icy water. Thus she was trapped until that time when the sharp ice cut through her neck. Her corpse was not found, but they brought the head to Herod and Herodias, as once they had brought them the head of John the Baptist.” (“The Beheading of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John,” Lives of the Saints, Aug. 29, 2023, Orthodox Church of America, oca.org.)
“‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).
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