THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Offaly columnist asks 'can you tell my story to the world'

ST Paul reminds us: “We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet enriching many; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:10). The Christian life is paradoxical. We can name sorrow honestly, yet still hold fast to hope. We rejoice not because all is well, for it is not, but because Christ is present, even in ruins, and His Kingdom will come. But honesty must come first. There is no resurrection without the cross. We live in an age where suffering is live-streamed. Wars, famines, displacement, injustice are all competing for attention alongside celebrity gossip and online sales. It is disorienting, even numbing. But numbness is not an option for disciples of Christ.

Naming evil

Our world groans under suffering. Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Congo, Yemen, Haiti and in many more places and the cries are relentless. In Gaza, children queue for bread that will not come. Families dig loved ones from rubble. Hospitals run without power. Civilians are bombed and starved in full view of the world. This is not “collateral damage.” It is cruelty chosen, sustained, and funded.

One aid worker described a father digging with his fingernails through concrete to reach the body of his daughter. His hands were torn, bleeding. When asked why he did not stop, he simply replied: “She is mine. I must bring her back.” The only parish priest in Gaza, Father Gabriel Romanelli, said recently, “Everyone here is pleading for mercy: to take pity, for mercy, for compassion, for them to stop this war, for them to stop shooting, for them to stop killing people, for them to stop bombing. There are stories that are terrible, there are stories that are truly terrible.

People are deeply distressed and implore God to take pity, to have mercy on everyone, and they also implore taking pity on everyone, so that for the love of God this war may end." Isaiah’s warning still thunders: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.” (Isaiah 10:1–2). Yet Gaza is not alone. Sudan bleeds, Congo writhes under war, Yemen and Haiti starve, Ethiopia struggles with so many displaced, Ukraine braces for winter. And still, we scroll. We sigh. We look away.

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No hierarchy of worth

Our world weeps unevenly. Some lives make headlines, others barely earn a footnote. Some deaths haunt us, others pass unnoticed. The Gospel knows no such division. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). Jesus declares: “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40). To ignore the cries of the poor is to ignore Christ Himself. Every hungry child bears His face. Every refugee is His flesh. Every grieving mother is the Mother of Sorrows at the foot of the cross. To ration compassion is to betray Him.

The danger of comfortable faith

Here is a hard truth, we who call ourselves Christians are not innocent. Too often, we settle into comfortable faith. We sing of God’s love on Sunday but forget His suffering ones by Monday. We pray for peace but do not demand justice. We confuse neutrality with holiness. Some say, “It is too political. The Church should stay silent.”

But silence is not neutrality, it is complicity. We, who feast while others starve. We, who scroll past images of rubble while complaining about Wi-Fi. We, who pray “Thy Kingdom come” but live as though this world belongs to Caesar. We, who prefer sermons that soothe rather than challenge. Christ will not let us hide. He warns: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20) Faith is not safe or comfortable, it is costly and always for the poor. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who faced the evils of Nazi Germany, warned: “Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

There is no balance between a bomb and a baby. There is no Gospel in keeping quiet while injustice reigns. And yet, how often do we hear, “Don’t stir up trouble.” But Christ Himself stirred trouble. He overturned tables. He named hypocrisy. He was crucified for challenging the empire and defending the poor. The Church must resist the temptation to be liked, to remain comfortable, to bless the powerful while ignoring the powerless. A faith that never disturbs us is not the faith of Christ crucified. If our prayers never unsettle us, they are not prayers but pious noise.

More on bombs than bread

Our world spends €2.7 trillion on weapons each year, while peacekeeping and humanitarian aid collapse. Always money for war, rarely enough for bread. These are deliberate choices. If we are silent, we, too, are choosing. I think of a young boy in Tigray, Ethiopia, who whispered to me in a displaced peoples camp that I worked in recently, “Can you tell my story to the world? Maybe then they will bring us food.”

He was nine. He should have been learning sums in a classroom, not calculating how many days he could live without bread. And I think of a young man I met at a soup run in Dublin. He had worked in construction until addiction took hold. With tears in his eyes, he said: “I didn’t think I’d ever be here. But I’m hungry. That’s all.” In a city where new hotels rise like glass towers, he waits in line for a sandwich. The Prophet Micah cries: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8). We cannot walk humbly if we walk past the poor, the needy, the refugee, the abandoned and the homeless. We cannot love mercy while funding war. We cannot act justly while looking away. Here in Ireland, we know something of violence and peace. We know what it is to bury children too soon, to see streets divided, to carry generations of trauma.

The Good Friday Agreement did not come quickly, and it was not without cost. It required patience, compromise, truth-telling, and the courage to sit at tables with enemies. If peace was possible here, it is possible elsewhere. But peace never comes by accident. It requires courage, investment, and dismantling systems that profit from war. Ireland’s witness is not just history, it is a call. Having known violence, we must be doubly committed to the ways of peace.

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What must we do?

And yet, even in ruins there is light. In Gaza, doctors operate by torchlight. In Sudan, neighbours share their last crumbs. In Ukraine, elderly women sweep shattered streets. In Ethiopia and Somalia, farmers plant seeds in scorched earth. These acts of stubborn love are seeds of the Kingdom. They are holy defiance against despair. Christ is alive in the margins, waiting for us to join Him there. We must pray, but not safe prayers.

Dangerous prayers that break our hearts and set our feet moving. “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:17). We must act. Demand ceasefires and aid corridors. Write, march, give. Welcome refugees, feed the hungry, refuse numbness. Speak, even when it costs. Silence is easy but speaking out is costly. Christ calls us to the Cross, not comfort. The question is not only what is happening in the world, but what are we becoming? Will we be people of apathy or people of the Resurrection?

Thought for the week

As your thought for the week, please know that the cries of the poor are not background noise. They are holy. They are Christ’s own voice. To ignore them is to crucify Him again. To respond is to rise with Him. This week, do not look away. Do not settle for silence. Do not cling to a comfortable faith. Christ is still asking: “What will you become?” Let me leave you with one of my prayers for Peace in our world, "Christ of the wounded hands, Christ of the broken heart, Christ of the refugee, homeless and the stranger, walk with us into the hard places of this world. May the road of justice rise to meet us, may mercy be the wind at our back, may hope light the path before us, and may love be our shield and our song.

Until every child is fed, every tear is dried, and every nation learns war no more. Lord of mercy, open our ears to the cries of Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Congo, Ethiopia, Yemen, Haiti, and our own streets. We, who so easily grow numb, wake us up. We, who so quickly turn away, hold our gaze. We, who hoard while others hunger, break our grip. Disturb our comfort. Disarm our indifference. Set fire to our compassion. Let our prayers become protest. Let our sorrow become solidarity. Let our faith become flesh in action, courage, and costly love. Make us the ones who do not look away and who strive to bring peace to a broken world. In Jesus’ name, Amen."