A parishioner of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, now a refugee in Jordan, reflects on the toll the war has taken on the people of Gaza and on how the struggle to find peace and healing continues.
By Helda Joseph Ayyad
At the dawn of the Great Sunday, the angels do not roll away the stone from the door of the tomb merely to proclaim life, but also to announce the end of the long Sabbath of Sorrows.
This is how it seemed to me as I took my first step outside the borders of Gaza, crossing into Jordan. That step was like emerging from the depths of the abyss, from the darkness of the tomb that had pressed heavily upon our chests for months, into a light glimmering on the horizon.
Christ has risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and my sister and I have emerged from the valley of the shadow of death. We drag bodies that have been terrorised, spitting from our chests the dust of explosions that came so close to carving our names onto tombstones.
A body risen… A heart still in hell
Yet, oh God, it is not a complete resurrection. How can there be a resurrection when a part of the body remains captive to the tomb?
I crossed with my sister; we saw the light, and we breathed air untainted by the scent of gunpowder and blood. We saw lit streets and standing houses, and we felt as though we were being given a second life we had never dared to dream of. However, this light exposes the raw wounds within me; I am not whole here.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This cry that echoed upon Mount Golgotha resonates today within the depths of my soul. My soul is split by a sharp blade:
A half resurrected: Here in Jordan, gathering its wounds, trying to believe that the sky can rain water, not fire.
And a half crucified there: In the dark alleys of Gaza, beneath the rubble, with my mother and father, and with my brother—the piece of my heart and the pillar of my life—whom I left behind to face the dragon alone.
The wound of Good Friday in the midst of light
How can I rejoice in the dawn of the Resurrection while my brother still lives through “Good Friday” with all its agony, its scourging, and its whips? Every morsel of bread I eat in the light of Jordan chokes in my throat because I picture my brother hungry. Every night I sleep in safety, my eyes weep blood because my brother is cloaked in fear and pillowed on the dust.
I am like Mary Magdalene, who stood weeping before the empty tomb—not because Christ had risen, but because she thought they had taken away her Lord’s body and did not know where they had laid Him. And I, standing in this light, weep because they have taken my homeland from me, and left the greater part of my soul behind the fence of death.
A prayer from the night of exile
O Jesus, You who tasted the bitterness of separation, the piercing, and death, look upon Gaza. Look upon my brother, in whose eyes I left a parting glance that could shatter stone. If my departure to Jordan is my resurrection from death, then make it a complete resurrection. Do not leave my family in the darkness of the tomb.
I am here, a body that survived, but my heart is there, trembling with every airstrike, beating inside my brother’s chest. O Lord, roll away the stone from Gaza, so that my family may come out into the light, so that my split soul may be made whole again, and we may chant together:
”O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”
