Members from Pax Christi England and Wales, Westminster Justice and Peace, Christian Climate Action, Palestine Solidarity and individuals from various denominations were among those who gathered at St Peter’s Church in Eaton Square, London for prayers, before joining the London march calling for a ceasefire in Gaza last Saturday.
“As Christians, we cannot be silent,” said Revd Sam Fletcher of Christians for Palestine. He said the ecumenical group called on the UK government and church leaders to use every means at their disposal to bring about an immediate ceasefire and full freedom and equality for all people in the Holy Land.
The march was the tenth national demonstration in London for peace in the Holy Land, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Christians for Palestine also marched in York last week, starting from York Minster. During Lent there have been a number of Gaza ceasefire pilgrimages around the UK, including in Aldershot, Birmingham, Coventry, Reading, Liverpool, Nottingham, Hexham, Portsmouth, and the Isle of Mull in Scotland.
In response to Cardinal Vincent Nichols’s call for a Day of Prayer for the Holy Land on 8 March, Westminster Justice and Peace Commission hosted an online nine-day Novena of Prayer in the lead-up, led by Mary Pierre-Harvey from Hounslow Parish. In this Novena to Our Lady Untier of Knots, around 20-25 people prayed for Israelis and Palestinians suffering violence and for an end to all war. Colette Joyce, coordinator of the commission, told The Tablet, “We have to believe that it is possible in the power of the Holy Spirit to untie these ‘knots’ of hatred, violence and tragedy and we are confident that the intercession of Mary, herself a young woman who gave birth... in difficult circumstances, is a powerful aid to bringing protection and lasting peace to this devastated region.”
In Ireland, marking St Patrick’s Day, a group of residents from Cooley, Co Louth sent a video message to US President Joe Biden from the graveyard of Kilwarra at Carlingford, highlighting deaths during the famine and forced emigration and calling for “a permanent lasting ceasefire” in Gaza.
Lenten appeals to support the suffering communities of the Holy Land are being run by Friends of the Holy Land, Aid to the Church in Need and Cafod. Pax Christi England and Wales has encouraged dioceses which use olive oil for sacramental anointing to use Palestinian oil.
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