The
Kairos Palestine Easter Alert has just been released. Delayed this year because of the disruption caused by the pandemic, it is in time for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. This year's Easter Alert is a treasure -- for reflection, learning, and as a guide to action for the year to come.
The Easter Alert this year is devoted to Jerusalem, and opens with a reflection by Latin Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah (see the report on the recent film,
"The People's Patriarch"). It includes outstanding reflections and essays addressing four topics:
- The religious importance of Jerusalem.
- Jerusalem: a cause of violence or an instrument of peace?
- Jerusalem, a divided or united city?
- Jerusalem is the road to global peace.
The Easter alert is built on the armature of the 2009 Kairos Palestine
document and the 2020 Cry for Hope. It offers superb reflections and essays from theologians, church leaders, community leaders and educators from Palestine, Norway, India and the United States. Here, theology, spirituality, history and politics come together -- just as they did on the first Easter in Jerusalem.
To experience the reality of Jerusalem today is to understand its significance for all humankind, and to grasp the profound suffering, resistance, hope and faith of Palestinians today. Entering deeply into Jerusalem, as the Easter Alert invites us to do, is to join Palestinians in their persistent resistance to tyranny.
It is to be inspired and guided with people all over the world in the Easter message of ever-renewing life and to the commitment to building a world of love, compassion and justice.