Friday, March 27

Reflection from Joyce Hollyday

A voice was heard in Ramah,

wailing and loud lamentation,

Rachel weeping for her children;

she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.

                                        —Jer. 31:15

The prophet Jeremiah testified to the anguish of mothers in a time of war and exile, echoing the profound grief recorded in the first chapter of Exodus, when young boys were drowned in the Nile River by order of Pharaoh. Centuries later, Matthew quoted Jeremiah’s words to reflect the torment that resulted when King Herod, threatened by the birth of Jesus, ordered the massacre of all boys in Bethlehem under the age of two. And now we, too, are witnesses to the cruel and systematic murder of children in that land. 

Two-year-olds Omar Jazar and Kenan Ghariz, one-year-old twins Marwa and Janan Al-Astal, infants Youssef Abu Mahdi and Maria Al-Masry: these are just a few of the more than 20,000 children among the 70,000-plus Gazans who have been killed in Israel’s attacks since October 2023—children who are no more. 

There is no end in sight—to the war, or to the tears of their mothers and fathers, and all their beloved ones who must bear the unbearable. We weep in solidarity and feel the pain of our powerlessness to stop it. And we listen for the whispers of determination and hope that still echo amid the rubble and devastation, including these words from the beginning of “The Impossible,” by Palestinian politician and poet Tawfiq Zayyad: 

It would be a thousand times easier for you
To lead an elephant through the eye of a needle,
Catch fried fish in scorched earth,

Plow the seas, 

Blow out the sun,
Imprison the wind,
Or make a crocodile speak,
Than to extinguish, through persecution,
The shimmering glow of a belief,
Or check our march
Towards our cause
One single step.

—Joyce Hollyday