Gen 18: 1-12
The LORD appeared to Abraham by the terebinth of Mamre, as he sat in the entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot.
Looking up, he saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground, he said: "Sir, if I may ask you this favor, please do not go on past your servant.
Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest yourselves under the tree.
Now that you have come this close to your servant, let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way." "Very well," they replied, "do as you have said."
Abraham hastened into the tent and told Sarah, "Quick, three seahs of fine flour! Knead it and make rolls."
He ran to the herd, picked out a tender, choice steer, and gave it to a servant, who quickly prepared it.
Then he got some curds and milk, as well as the steer that had been prepared, and set these before them; and he waited on them under the tree while they ate.
"Where is your wife Sarah?" they asked him. "There in the tent," he replied.
One of them said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son." Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, just behind him.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years, and Sarah had stopped having her womanly periods.
So Sarah laughed to herself and said, "Now that I am so withered and my husband is so old, am I still to have sexual pleasure?"
Dear sisters and brothers,
Last Sunday we heard in the readings this passage from Genesis. It seems to speak to us even today, as we gather to pray. We pray for peace, especially for the Gaza Strip.
The attack on the only Catholic parish in Gaza, with people who died and were wounded, and it is meaningfully that one of the Christians killed was named Ibrahim, Abraham. It was just one of the many systematic acts of violence that hit the people of Gaza every day, already hostage by a terrorist regime.
A Palestinian from Gaza, in exile in Rome and living with his children in one of the homes of the Community, told me: ‘We are twice hostages’. Indeed, the Community has always been ready to welcome those who managed to leave the Strip. It has always been ready to reunite families scattered.
In Gaza, life is being trampled upon, increasingly unliveable for its inhabitants. Survival is almost impossible in the Strip. In Gaza, there is nothing sacred anymore: not the church, not the mosque, not any place of prayer, not the hospital, not a clinic, not a house, not a school, not even a line of people begging for food and water after enduring hunger and thirst. Not even children, sometimes queuing for food.
Nothing is sacred anymore. Every day, the people of Gaza pay a tribute of blood, with no respect for humanitarian right, even in situations of war. A people is considered an enemy, and any enemy can be killed.
We heard about Abraham, who was sitting at the entrance of his tent, ran to meet three unknown strangers and knelt before them. They came from afar. So he invited them to eat with him and honoured them. That visit was a significant opportunity for a promise of fertility, which made Sarah laugh because of its absurdity. How could she be fertile, when you are old? But the Lord said to Abraham a word that is striking in its power of hope: ‘Is anything impossible for the Lord?’
Welcoming a stranger leads to welcoming God, the God who makes us fruitful. Our hope is that everything is possible for God. This is our hope! Even if it seems that men do not want it to be possible.
The war in Gaza and everywhere is sterile. It is destruction, death, pain, suffering. Sterile because it burns the future, and the price of this war in Gaza is paid indiscriminately by powerless civilians.
Yesterday Pope Leon XVI said: ‘I ask once again that the barbarity of war be stopped immediately and that a peaceful resolution to the conflict be reached’. And he added: ‘I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian right, to respect the obligation to protect civilians, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, indiscriminate use of force and forced displacement of the population’.
These are strong words from a man of peace, pointing to a way out of this systematic destruction of a country and the children of a people, the Palestinian people of Gaza.
This war has been harsh since that tragic October 2023, when bloodthirsty terrorism hit Israel, massacring and kidnapping innocent people.
We have always called for the release of the hostages and for the bodies of those unjustly killed to be returned to their families. But an entire people cannot pay the price for this inhuman madness, with the systematic destruction of families' lives, without seeing an end to this war.
How long will this last? How much pain has been inflicted and, above all, how much hatred has been sown! The tears of those who suffer or have suffered are united with our prayers this evening. Our prayers are addressed to the Lord, for whom nothing is impossible. May peace be restored, or at least the breath of a truce may be given. May the day come when there are no more deaths, when we no longer pay a daily tribute of blood to the idol of war.
Our thoughts go to Abraham. Our father and the father of all believers, to whom Jews, Christians and Muslims willingly refer and consider a model of the believer. He was considered, in those lands, a prince of God.
May the memory of Abraham, the memory of the father of all believers, remind us how we need to welcome one another. And to welcome one another, we must accept the presence of the other. And to accept this presence, we must talk to one another and negotiate. Yes, negotiate and talk to one another.
At this time, perhaps, these realities so natural, so spontaneous, so human, talking and negotiating in disagreement, seem impossible. And so, instead of words, weapons come. Because death and war now claim so many victims, so many victims! And they kill the future of a region.
May God, who is great and merciful, God who can do all things, grant peace soon, stop the hands that strike, open the way to truce, encounter and negotiation. Because nothing is impossible for God. Amen.
Concluding prayer, after the litany for countries and regions at war:
O Lord, merciful Father,
who do not want the blood of men, women and children to be shed, we pray to you. With the power of your love, with the persuasion of your Spirit, grant peace to those who are fighting in the countries we have commemorated, as we invoked your mercy. And in particular, grant peace and protection to the people of Gaza, who have been suffering for so long.
Give us peace, Lord,
the peace that we are incapable of giving ourselves and that we refuse to give to one another.
Do this quickly, with your merciful power. Now and forever. Amen.
