All Catholics pray for the Pope at every mass. This past Sunday however, Fr. Peter asked us to pray for the Pope in a special way. He asked the whole congregation to pray that God grant the Holy Father the courage and strength to continue to be a clear moral voice for peace in a world clouded by violence and war. Fr. Peter’s words echoed the prayer that already existed in my heart. For the past few weeks Pope Leo’s voice, reminding us of the words of Jesus, keeps echoing in my ears, “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” 

We have launched an emergency appeal at Development & Peace – Caritas Canada to support the Peacemakers in the Middle East who we are honoured to call our partners. Well over 200 people recently joined a webinar we hosted to hear from three of these Peacemakers: Karam Abi Yazbeck, Nayla Tabbara, and Raffoul Raffa. 

Karam is the regional coordinator of Caritas Mona (middle east/north Africa) and works with all the National Caritas in that region.  Joining us from where he lives in Beirut, Lebanon, he shared stark numbers from the current conflict in the region covered by Caritas Mona. These numbers included the striking fact that 48% of the population affected needs some form of humanitarian assistance. To this immense ocean of need, the Caritas network can offer but a drop. Still, that drop is vital, making a difference in the lives of tens of thousands of suffering people.

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Nayla appeared on camera wearing black. She explained that she had just come from offering condolences to a friend who lost his mother and brother in one of the strikes on Beirut. She also shared that on this same day she received news of the death of another friend who was killed in a strike that took place three minutes before the cease-fire. 

To help us understand what it is to live as a peacemaker in Lebanon right now, she shared three words in Arabic with us. The first is “Samud.” It means, she said, “an act of defiance by simply existing.” It is a form of non-violence in that sense, continuing to exist despite efforts to destroy you. The second word was “qahr” (ka-har). She described it as a mix of pain, anger, and sadness. “You know when you see a post on Instagram and you don’t know if you want to put the angry face or the broken heart? That is the feeling of qahr.”

Nayla told us that it would be easy if there were simply two camps in the conflict and one was good and the other bad. But the truth, she said, is that no side in the conflict carries purely the values of solidarity, justice, empathy, and refusing to dehumanize others. “It is up to us to carry those values,” she said.

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Nayla is the executive director of Adyan which means, “Religions” in Arabic. This was the third word. Her organization, founded in 2006, is dedicated to building peace. It was founded, “believing in the importance of hearing each other. Of hearing the pain of each other.” They are working daily to resist the complex and immense pressures that promote division in Lebanese society due to the war. 

“It’s long road,” she said, but it is one that is necessary, “to keep our humanity alive.”

The final Peacemaker, Raffoul, is the head of the St. Yves Society. They offer legal aid to those in Palestine who are trying to remain on the land. He described in great detail their work to promote family reunification, freedom of movement, and prevention of home demolitions. These are the punishing legal circumstances that Palestinians find themselves in. When asked how they keep hope alive, he answered very simply, “By helping as many people as we possibly can.”

The work and witness of peacemakers like Karam, Nayla, and Raffoul is the work that Pope Leo is constantly calling us to, reminding us that this is the call of the Risen Christ.

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While we can support peacemakers in places like the Middle East through financial generosity, advocacy, and prayer, we can also be inspired by them to be peacemakers in our own local contexts. Fr. Peter, in asking us to pray for Pope Leo, also challenged us to do this – to think of places in our own families and communities where we can be agents of peace. I believe that if we are truly to be an Easter people, a people who choose life over death, then we have no other choice but to accept the challenge.