Amazing Grace-THE BRIDGE

Imagine

What do you do if you are a Palestinian Christian Catholic businessman minding your own business married to an Ecuadorian American living in America and your Palestinian Christian blood brother is killed in the conflict. That is what Rateb Rabi had to figure out. He did the Christian Catholic thing; learned how to forgive.
He quit his business life and under the mentoring of a Jesuit priest named Drew Christiansen who is now editor in Chief of America magazine in New York founded the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF.org) inspiring a whole congregation of Presbyterians in Washington, DC at National Presbyterian Church under the leadership of their beloved Pastor Craig Barnes (now at Shady Side Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh) in an ecumenical vision to save and support the mother church in the Holy Land. Soon programs and projects like a Senior Center and housing rehab development project and child sponsoring sprouted.
Today at an HCEF conference attended by a former State Department diplomat, and head of the DeChantal Ministry at Holy Trinity, a former World Vision middle east worker whose extended Jewish family perished in part in the Warsaw uprising, a Franciscan Friar and professor at a prominent Washington, DC seminary, the leader of the Bethesda Communion and Liberation lay movement who recently was featured on a panel at the JPII Center at the Beatification, the ubiquitous charming Hugh Dempsey whose face warms a crowd wherever he shows it, the Social Justice chair for the DC Archdiocese, and numerous other prominent Catholics, both religious and lay from various ministries and parishes gathered to hear about the condition of the Christians in the Holy Land. These are the 'living stones' who are preventing the Holy Sites and shrines from turning into dead museums, as was noted by a Washington, DC Bishop who spent a few days in Israel with Achb. Hickey, noting that "they" turned off all the water the day they got there to underscore how much out of control much of life for the people living in Palestinian territories is.

The Holy Land Ecumenical Foundation is forging new bridges to Peace, in service of the Prince of Peace, in that they are promoting positive views and visions of the peace minded Christians there who can broker various conflict situations and assist in the economic development. Of course, they condemn violence all the time -it is an anathema to the Christian faith. The Christians in the Holy Land can thus offer a safe place for dialogue in this regard and brokering solutions.

Recently Pastor Mark Horak of Holy Trinity in Georgetown went on one of the pilgrimmages offered by the HCEF to Israel and saw first hand what life was like. In one of his pastoral letter addresses he noted that it could easily generate a bit of resentment when armed Israeli paratroopers enter a tourist bus of religious pilgrims and hastle them over papers.
No question it is a police state of sorts.

Much has been written about the restrictions on travel, the walls, the conflict. But much more needs to be written about organizations like HCEF and what they are doing to make a positive difference- especially so places like Bethlehem don't turn into a city of ruins and sacred places revered by Christians around the world are not turned into museums or worse. The western world that values these holy shrines and places where heaven meets earth thus needs to give the Christians of the Holy Land intentional support so they can live the faith in peace as examples for the region.

You can become involved. You can go on pilgrimmage- you can attend conferences, you can support Christians there by buying products of olive wood hand crafted by Palestinian Christians and exclusive virgin olive oils right from their website-at competitive prices.

Currently the hastles of life to make it uncomfortable or unbearable for Palestinians is legend. Any Palestinian living there can tell you about it. Catholic Priests are being denied visas. Christians who lived there to learn Hebrew have been sent back to where they came from. Land is confiscated, and Drew Christiansen noted that even a few holy sites have been nationalized; Mount Tabor, the holy site of the transfiguration where a Shrine exists on top of a mountain is now a national park for example, among others. Taxation of religious lands is under discussion and being legally fought.

Clearly, much has to be done to safeguard and strengthen the Christian presence in the Holy Land, and respect the Christian traditions there. Jerusalem should be made a sacred city with International protections that secure the right of worship of all three major faiths without state harassment or interference. This should be something that the international community stands solidly behind for the sake of peace in the region. There should be a safe way for Palestinian Christians living in places like Bethlehem to be able to worship in Jerusalem without hastle with safe passage at times like Easter. Shockingly, people whose families have been Christian for two thousand years could not travel from Palestinian territories to Jerusalem for Easter services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

For more information on the Israel pilgrimmages and works of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation whose main US offices are in Bethesda contact the program coordinator, Chiara Cardone a member of Saint Louis de France Parish in Washington, DC at
ccardone [at] hcef.org (replace [at] with@)