From the CoI: Startcare’; Voices from the Land of the Holy One
The ongoing evils and horrors in Gaza provoke in us the cry, What can we do? And How long, O Lord? (Psalm 13)
This post was published on the Church of Ireland’s website and social media platforms on 28 July 2025.
"Voices from the Land of the Holy One – gathering perspectives of Christian leaders
In the wake of the attack on the Holy Family Church in Gaza on July 17 and intense pressure being put on Christians in the West Bank, Christians around the world are being urged by their brothers and sisters in the Land of the Holy One to raise their voices and raise awareness The Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough has gathered some voices of church leaders in Jerusalem, including from our partners in the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem. Archbishop Michael Jackson has written an introduction calling us all to pray for a ceasefire so that care for all the people of the region can start.
Praying for ‘Startcare’ …
Introduction by Archbishop Michael Jackson
Over many years, we in Dublin and Glendalough have had a relationship of friendship and reciprocation with The Diocese of Jerusalem and The Middle East. Every part of that diocese is now in a theatre of war. We care for, we pray for and we seek to support everyone who suffers throughout the region; we continue to pray for the release of all hostages. We have witnessed unimaginable sacrifice, immeasurable solidarity, unbearable suffering and now widespread starvation. We have also witnessed betrayal, abandonment, numbness and hopelessness at home and abroad. We have documented and analyzed the political tangle, the military devastation and the national idealism that have fed these conflicts. All of this has left everyone looking at a brick wall of bloodied humanity. It is important that we do not turn our faces away and let our hearts be turned to flint, thereby normalizing warfare and its horrific consequences.
There can be no startcare without ceasefire. Once again, I invite people to pray for an immediate ceasefire and in this I stand in solidarity with everyone of all Christian persuasions who are Heads of Churches in Jerusalem in The Land of The Holy One. Where are we, who are beneficiaries of the earliest response to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in that treasured region, without the living stones? My invitation is not confined to the Christian population, including all members of the Anglican Diocese whom I love dearly and at this stage know well, but extends to everyone in Israel and Palestine. Those who speak from the ground up and out in Jerusalem urge us not to forget all Palestinians who suffer. To this I add all the citizens of The State of Israel because the present, as currently experienced, is not a future. Across the world of today, countries with divided and fractured heritage do not flourish as they might, were they to listen and care together about a shared humanity and a shared ecology. Time is always shortening. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are time–honoured ways of centring before God our concerns and our compassion for those in need right across religious traditions. They are practised regularly in the three Faith Traditions whom everyone worldwide associates with this region, Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Cardinal Pizzaballa, on his recent return from Gaza, spoke of seeing mothers preparing food for others – altruism; he spoke of seeing nurses treating wounds with gentleness – altruism; he spoke of people of all faiths still praying to the God who sees and never forgets – altruism. And then, with utter devastation, he speaks of people themselves seeing no horizon for a return. A landscape without an horizon is no longer a landscape. The redemption of memory in the present time is the calling of international and local leaders to sobriety and action.
In our own nationwide programme of awareness raising and fund raising for a particular hospital, The Al Ahli Arab Hospital, we adopted as our strapline some words from St John 1.5: The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never mastered it. The failure of darkness to master the Middle East continues to be our hope and our prayer today. I commend to your perusal the enclosed collage of perspectives which Lynn has kindly gathered. It comes as our response to a call from Christians in the region to others to amplify what they are saying. We need to move rapidly from warfare to ceasefire and then to startcare. We thank you for your generosity up until now. We need you to use every honourable means to enable this to begin in order to salvage and populate a landscape for all where human needs for survival are met equally.
The psalmist encourages us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Let us now turn our hearts to pray not only for the peace of Jerusalem but for all of The Middle East and its people affected by war, famine and despair.
+Michael
Dublin & Glendalough"
See https://www.churchofireland.org/news/12978/voices-from-the-land-of
