ASIA/PALESTINE - Father Gabriel and the mission in Gaza

Gaza (Agenzia Fides) - Life in Gaza is not easy for anyone. For 70 years, the consequences of the Arab-Israeli conflict have turned the Gaza Strip into the largest open-air prison in the world, cyclically disrupted by outbreaks of war that cause carnage among the civilian population, sowing seeds of hatred in the future of the younger generations. In such a place, for those who have had the gift of faith in Christ, the most important thing is "to guard the physical presence of Christ himself in the Eucharist", and to ask that He himself guard the daily journey of Jesus’ poor friends, for the good and to the advantage of all. This is the belief of Father Gabriel Romanelli, parish priest of the Catholic church dedicated to the Holy Family in Gaza, comforted by the small and large miracles of faith, hope and charity that he sees happening among his parishioners and their fellows. Among the recent surprises - Father Gabriel reveals in a conversation with Agenzia Fides - there is also the face of Abdallah, the 24-year-old Palestinian boy who began the journey to become a priest, following what, God willing, could become the first priestly or religious vocation fulfilled in the Gaza Strip.
Father Gabriel came to Gaza following his missionary vocation. Already in his childhood dreams, he imagined himself announcing the Gospel to the world and wondered why in his Buenos Aires, where almost everyone was baptized, Christians did not live happily. "I had also read a booklet on St. John Bosco" he jokingly recalls today, "and I was struck by the phrase that whoever helps to save another soul, also saves his own". After overcoming the perplexities of his parents, he entered the novitiate of the Institute of the Incarnate Word at the age of 18. As a seminarian, he dreamed that his vocation would lead him to China, or Russia. Instead, his superiors asked him to go to the Middle East. "I" says Father Romanelli "was happy and amazed". The Middle East is the land of the Lord, I thought it was a destination to be proposed to experienced priests, and I was still a seminarian… ". After his priestly ordination and two years spent in Egypt to learn Arabic, his first destination was Jordan. Then Archbishop Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, asked him to go as formator to the patriarchal Seminary of Beit Jala, where he taught philosophical subjects in Arabic and French for 14 years. He arrives in Gaza in 2019, as the new parish priest of the Church of the Holy Family.
"For me", Father Gabriel says, "it is a truly beautiful mission. Each time I am amazed to think that according to a constant tradition, the child Jesus passed through Gaza on his way to and from Egypt, when the Holy Family, whose name our parish bears, had to flee to preserve him from the wickedness of Herod. And then I always think of theologians and saints, such as Hilarion, who made monasticism flourish in the Gaza Strip since the early Christian centuries".
Today, the historical context of Gaza, with all its wounds, also pushes the apostolic work to take on essential features.
There is no need for pastoral plans full of effective ideas or to entrust evangelization to new "communication strategies". It is enough to follow and be attentive to the things that real life places in front of us.
The priorities that push Father Romanelli - starting with the safeguarding the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist - also shape and suggest the things to do, which are the most habitual and simple gestures of Catholic spirituality: prayer, celebration of the Mass and the sacraments, the Rosary, catechism. It is better to repeat these gestures than to waste time talking obsessively about the small number of baptized in Gaza. It is in this spirit that the scout group was born or has blossomed again in recent years, the school for altar boys that bears the name of the young Carlo Acutis ("who in the meantime has been proclaimed Blessed, and we are happy to prepare for his canonization ..."), the doctrinal courses (focused this year on the Sacraments, after those devoted to Sacred Scripture and the Virgin Mary) and Eucharistic adoration, "that this year, Father Gabriel points out, we also offered to the youngest". Maybe it only lasts a few minutes for them, but in this way they too can begin to have in front of their eyes and hearts that Jesus, our Savior is present in that consecrated Host".
The apostolic work of the parish of Gaza is not obsessed with activist commitment. And perhaps for this very reason the works of charity that spontaneously grows around the church is impressive, even in quantitative terms. The scourges and emergencies of the people of Gaza are many. "The church - underlines Father Gabriel - is like an oasis for the Christian community and for all the others". In the Gaza Strip, where at least one million 800 thousand Palestinians live, Christians are currently 1077. Among them are 133 Catholics. The schools of the Latin Patriarchate and the Sisters of the Rosary welcome 2,300 pupils, almost all Muslims. The Sisters of Mother Teresa take care of 75 disabled people, of whom 50 are children. Then there are those who take care of the 66 "butterfly babies", children suffering from a degenerative genetic disease, the effect of consanguinity - epidermolysis bullosa - which makes the skin so fragile that it becomes infected and filled with sores. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected around 60,000 people in the Gaza Strip, of whom around 40,000 have been treated by teams of doctors and mobile clinics organized by Caritas. Even the leaders of Hamas, the Islamist Party that politically controls the Gaza Strip, take note of the actions carried out for the good of the population by the charitable organizations linked to the parish of the Holy Family. Before last Christmas, when some preachers wanted their faithful to be warned in mosques not to send greetings and messages of good wishes to their fellow Christians and friends, the Palestinian government in Ramallah also took a harsh stand against such intimidation.
Some Hamas representatives visited the parish, and as a clear sign of their kindness to the parish, their photo was published in the local media together with Father Gabriel, all posing under the Christmas tree.
Abdallah Nasser Jelda's vocation also flourished in this web of life. He is 24 years old, the eldest son of a Christian family of four children (two boys and two girls), who felt his "vocational anxiety" while he was involved in the parish activities. Today Abdallah has recently started the seminary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, in Italy, after having made his novitiate in Gaza. Research in the archives confirms that there have been no priestly or religious vocations in Gaza over the past 50 years. And to find another priest, monk or nun born and raised in Gaza, you have to go back even further. Father Gabriel takes no credit for himself. "Vocations" he says "do not belong to us. They belong to God". (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 25/2/2022)

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