Devotion to Prayer

During this Holy season Palestinian Christians are devoting themselves to times of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Palestinian Muslims mark the month of Ramadan, March 23 – April 20 by fasting from sunrise to sunset, taking part in charitable acts and meeting up with family members.

Lord, we pray that during this season we will draw aside in worship and prayer. As we bring our prayers for our families and neighbors to you, help us to remember to pray faithfully for our Palestinian brothers and sisters. May we stand with them as they cling to the word of hope, which helps them resist the dispossession and injustice they suffer under occupation.  Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Our Bethlehem family are living in fear and instability, hoping for better times ahead.

Hope

We Palestinians suffer from an incurable disease called “hope”
         Hope for liberation and independence
Hope for a normal life where we shall be neither heroes nor victims
         Hope to see our children go to school without danger
Hope for a pregnant woman to give birth to a living baby, in a hospital,
         not to a dead child in front of a military control post
Hope that our poets will see the beauty of the color red in roses,
          rather than in blood
Hope that this land will recover its original name:
         “Land of hope and peace”
Thank you for carrying with us this banner of hope.

- Mahmoud Darwish, the national poet of the Palestinians.