Palm Sunday Prayer for Peace, St George's Cathedral, Western Australia
I am pleased to share the words I delivered at today's 'Palm Sunday Prayer for Peace', hosted by the Anglican Social Responsibilities Commission, at the front of St. George's Cathedral, in Perth, Western Australia.
My reflections were delivered as we received news that the State of Israel had bombed the Emergency Department at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital - one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza.
Liturgy
Two thousand years ago, my ancestors stood at the gates of Jerusalem to welcome the Messiah.
Thirty years later, they chose not to take up arms in the revolt against Rome—a conflict that led to the exile of the Zealots, Essenes, Pharisees, and Sadducees.
Generation after generation, my ancestors—Palestinians—remained rooted in the land.
This included my grandfather, Bishop Faik Haddad, who was the first Palestinian Bishop of Jerusalem in the Anglican Church.
Under his leadership, the Al Ahli Arab Hospital became the responsibility of the Diocese of Jerusalem. I am sad to report that few hours ago, that hospital was bombed again by the State of Israel.
I acknowledge that I am here on Whajuk Noongar Booja, as a settler-migrant, due to the Exile of my people. I pay my respects to elders of the Noongar nation.
While we are here to pray for peace, let us also pray for wisdom, courage, and truth-telling.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, May you humble us before you, and grant our prayer that our hearts might soften, even if live genocides unfold before our eyes.
May you grant us voice, so that we might remember your call, to always speak truth, even if our pulpit is small, and our voice trembles in the face of earthly power.
May you grant us sight, so that we may see the humanity in families bombed in their tents, which some call self-defence, and yet others call salvation.
May you grant us hearing, so that we may heed the call of children under the rubble, and hear you our Lord, more clearly.
May you grant us courage to bear the consequences of speaking truth in the face of lies, speaking loudly despite the silence, and witnessing with our eyes open what some parts of the body of Christ have chosen to ignore.
May you grant us knowledge, so we may understand anti-semitism - even when misused to silence human rights defenders.
May you grant us love that we might face the challenge of loving our enemies with your grace in our hearts.
May you grant all your people sight to see that an eye for an eye will render us blind, and a tooth for a tooth, render us hungry.
Amen.