They are few, isolated because of the embargo and caught up in the society’s islamization carried forward by Hamas. But Catholic people are anyway a lively community, a sign of peace
We have heard it talked about many times because of its drama. But there could also be another point of view from which to look at Gaza: the one from the Holy Family Parish, the only Latin community in the Strip. An uneasy presence which is somehow the whole Middle East’s icon at the centre of the Synod which will be held in Rome this month. Andrea Bergamini, a religious of the Families of Visitation, reports.
The Latin parish of Gaza is small: there are about 2,500 Christians in the Strip and, among them, the vast majority are Orthodox. It is a “besieged” parish: the Israeli military barrier confines the one million and a half Gazan people in an open-air jail, and those million and a half Palestinians are almost all Muslims. But this is a very lively parish, as we feel every time that, once we have cleared the check-points, we manage to spend there some days.
To the person who comes from Jerusalem it is impressive to see the intensity with which people – quite a good number, at least 50-70 people – attend the daily Mass. The believers’ attention and concentration are immediately perceived as well as the vigour with which the readings are proclaimed and the prayers are said. In the small chapels where people pray, it is curious to see the friendly confusion which comes with the sign of peace and the communion which everyone receives.
After the blessing and the final hymn, the chairs are set out to form small circles and, with a cup of tea in hand, the latest news is recounted. On Sunday, the Eucharistic celebration “continues” in the churchyard where coffee is offered while the parish priest offers his greetings to every believer: “It is an intense communitarian moment which is to be shared after the Holy Mass in which fraternity and consideration for the others play an important role”, confesses father Jorge Hernandez, an Argentine missionary of the Institute of the Incarnate Verb who has been leading this community for a year and a half. If we could look at Gaza parish from high, zooming from the sky – and I think that this is the way the Lord does – we would see for sure a light of hope and faith shining in these people. Probably a light dispersed and sucked down the mass of houses and cars, rounded and besieged by the walls of war. A light emanating from the altar, from the body and blood of Christ who dies and rises again every day in the mystery of the Mass in the heart and in the lives of these Christian people.
“The Christian tradition in Gaza is a rich and old one. Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus probably came across it while they were fleeing to Egypt. This is exactly why Gaza is Holy Land with full rights”, father Jorge says proudly. This is why the parish is dedicated to the Holy Family. Since the first centuries of the Christian era Gaza has been home to monks, anchorites, saintly bishops… it is a red thread that originated with Jesus and extends to the present.
Most priests’, nuns’ and parish people’s energy is spent for children. We may say that they almost only work with and for them. Three Catholic schools welcome 1500 children daily. Of them, only 10% are Christians. In the parish, the group of older boys – the animators – is getting more solid. They meet weekly to carefully prepare the activities aimed at the youngest ones. “With our parish recreation centre Mar Iusef (Saint Joseph), officially launched a few months ago following the example of saints like Saint John Bosco and Saint Filippo Neri – father Jorge continues -, we try to stay with and to help children and young people, and to nourish in them the sense of beauty, the joy of Christian hope and the faith in the Lord.”
Attending some of their meetings I realized that they are not that different from the meetings in our Italian parishes. The need to spend time together, to play, to work as a team that for many reasons (the war, the old age of the previous parish priest, the parish traditions, and so on) during the past years has been difficult to fulfil, is very strong in the young Gazan Christians. During one of my last visits, at the end of the meeting we had played for more than two hours in the courtyard. In the meantime, meat was broiled to have dinner together. Cementing the friendship, enjoying mutual company, getting to know each other, finding a spouse-- everything that has become a vital to youngsters used to living at home, like in a ghetto.
The credit for this “revival” is in great measure due to Father Jorge who, with simplicity, started to call the youngsters, assigning them some tasks, listening to them as an elder brother, encouraging their opinions and ideas, leading them to discover their Christian identity. Made strong by the experience lived in other middle eastern places, he did nothing but open the parish recreation centre and be present on the grounds, in the catechism rooms, during the trips to the seaside, in the church. Children did not wait to be asked twice. Each Saturday the courtyard is crowded with 150-180 excited children.
The nuns, too, play a fundamental role. Starting in the early morning, from the chapels in their houses, prayer is the beating heart of the community. During the day, they show their particular charisma: Mother Teresa’s Sisters live with the handicapped children and with elderly people, housed there night and day, and in the morning they open their kindergarten (120 children). The Rosary Sisters have their school (from the nursery school to the end of primary school), the Little Sisters of Jesus live amidst the poorest of the poor. Soon, the nuns of the Incarnate Verb community, father Jorge’s congregation, will join as well. Much more than anywhere else, they all seem totally immersed in the Christian community, they are deeply part of it, they suffer with the people, laugh with them, cry with them. “The apostolate they are living – the parish priest comments – is a big blessing for all Gaza. This land will never be able to forget the mercy deeds which are every day humbly carried out”.
Three Latin Christian schools help the work of the parish in the Gaza Strip. The oldest is the closest to the church in the old centre of Gaza city: it includes a kindergarten, a primary school and a middle school. Every morning at 7:20 am students queue according to their age in the courtyard, attend the flag-raising ceremony, sing the national hymn and do some fitness training. Then everyone goes to the classroom. The vice headmistress welcomes us and leads us on a tour of the classrooms which are mixed. The ruling of Latin schools says that Muslim girls are not allowed to wear the headscarf within the school. In all of the other Gazan schools it is compulsory. For young Christian girls the situation would thus be very problematic without these institutions.
The Arabic language teacher is particularly solemn and proud when he presents his students. They look self-confident and willing to communicate, to use their English, to emerge from anonymity. The students who want to get to the high school leaving examinations will enrol at the Holy Family high school but not all of them will succeed because it is a high-level school, technical and difficult. We visit the science room, the teachers’ room, the library (we are told that it is well stocked with Arab literature books). Then we go to the nursery school. Rooms are wide, full of colours and games. For these children it is harder to smile. I do not understand whether they feel uneasy or they just do not want to. One of us was remarking that it is hard to see a child smiling in Gaza.
We go by car to Rimal, in the north of the city, a new neighbourhood, close to the sports ground where the Holy Family School, the flagship of the Latin Patriarchate, is located. The vice headmistress shows us immediately the certificate-diploma that they have prepared to remember their first place won among all the Gazan schools, obtained by taking a test done on a sample. The fourth class of the primary school of the Patriarchate earned the maximum score.
The Jerusalem diocese has always invested a lot in schools and education. Each parish has a school. It is the most direct and efficient way not to proselytise but to spread culture, the wisdom of meeting, studying, knowing. Young people have learned since they were babies how to grow up together, Christians and Muslims. And among all the schools of the Patriarchate the Gazan one, which operates in the most difficult and problematic context, emerges every year.
The former parish priest, father Manuel Musallam – a passionate, heroic, pedagogue and a bit “politic”, fond of his people – has chosen for years the best teachers, selected the motivated students, done his best to guarantee courses, didactics, infrastructures and modern tools. “This school – father Jorge explains – is the result of father Manuel’s 15 years spent leading this community. It was he who built it and directed it towards high and noble goals”.
Finally, in Tel al-Hawa, a modern neighbourhood in the South of Gaza, stands the school of the Rosary Sisters, inaugurated nine years ago. It was President Yasser Arafat who gave the land and supported the new school structure. The nuns say that he cared a lot about these kinds of initiatives. In almost ten years, society and conditions have radically changed: today it would be unthinkable to receive such countenance by the people who rule the Gaza Strip.
We start our tour with the nursery school. Sister Davida and sister Nabila tell us about the daily life at the school, the friendly relationship with the parents and the formal one with the neighbours but also about the dreadful attack of one year ago, the damages caused to the school and the children’s shock. I was moved by the sight of a nun teaching Christian religion in one classroom: listening to her there were only three girls and a boy who came out from their classrooms. One over ten or over twenty: these are the figures, the percentage of Christian-Muslim students in our schools!
The visit ends on the terrace where we see a distressing view. In Tel al-Hawa, the nuns’ house stands on the crossing of two streets that were controlled by two strong parties, Hamas and Fatah. And this neighbourhood was exactly the heart of the clashes between Hamas and Fatah before Hamas gained power. The nuns tell that, two years ago, someone placed a bomb in front of their main entrance. The explosion destroyed the entrance and burnt part of the house. During the operation Cast Lead (January 2009), the neighbourhood was surely bombed. The Israeli tanks entered here and left awful marks. The school suffered serious damages (a missile struck a window, a phosphorus bomb fell in the middle of the kindergarten). The houses around the school were almost destroyed.
But the problems do not end there. Many people told us that the ruling power is slowly, day by day, introducing measures that aim at radically islamizing the civil society, with a low tolerance towards different ideas or mores, through the use of violence, threats and retaliation so as to enforce the orders.
Only 10% of the population seems to agree with Hamas. The rest of the people are frightened, they are silent and endure, seeing the day of liberation and peace that distances itself each day.
In this very difficult context the three Catholic schools and Father Jorge's parish recreation centre are extraordinary signs of friendship, commitment, and good deeds. Children are the innocent and weak side of the conflict. And they are the future too. To go on investing all their energy and commitment in order to look after them and help them grow up as well as possible is a challenge that our Gazan friends - Chistians as well as non-Christians - are fighting. We have a lot to learn from them. We cannot leave them alone.
Translation from the italian language by Elena Dini (read the article in italian)
Source: missionline.org
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