Many of you, like me, were shocked by the news this past weekend that the United States and Israel attacked Iran. I was particularly shaken by the news that came next: that Iran retaliated and bombed its neighboring countries of Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Qatar. I lived in both Bahrain and the UAE in the 2010s, and after a quick google search, realized that both the neighborhoods I lived in had been targeted for retaliation by Iran. It certainly hits home when the places you once called home have turned into targets in a quickly escalating conflict with no end in sight.
While some of the countries involved in this new conflict have had wars recently, many of those countries have been safe havens for their people and the expats, like I once was. I have driven down their roads and shopped in their grocery stores. I worshipped at the Anglican Church in Dubai, Christ Church in Jebel Ali, and when I looked on Facebook to see how that parish was doing, their priest, the Rev. Jim Young, has been sending notes of encouragement to his parishioners. They were figuring out how to do Sunday services for anyone who dared to risk driving to church even as missiles continued to be intercepted by missile defense systems. The Church was still going to be the Church for its people.
Maybe you too have a story of connection to the region. Maybe you have friends or family in one of these countries or in Iran. Maybe you have visited one of the countries or prayed in the Holy Land. Or maybe your heart just breaks for the cycle of violence that is being inflicted on innocent people.
With the conflict so far away, it can feel like we are helpless in this situation, but we are not. God hears all prayers for peace. Archbishop Hosam Naoum, who heads the Anglican and Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, asks for your prayers for this region, all of which is under his ecclesial jurisdiction. He is the leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, but also of the Diocese of Iran and the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf. The faithful Christians in his jurisdiction are praying prayers just like we do each Sunday. The services in Dubai were and still are identical to our own at Calvary. Please pray for our Anglican siblings on the other side of the globe who are caught in this conflict, and following both Archbishop Naoum (https://www.facebook.com/bishopnaoum) and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (https://www.facebook.com/dioceseofjerusalem/) are good places to start if you would like to keep up with specific ways to pray and support this region.
If words for specific prayers fail you, our Book of Common Prayer has prayers such a time as this. One resource can be found after the Great Litany, which we just chanted on the First Sunday of Lent. The Great Litany includes an optional Supplication that can be added to the end of the Litany or can be used “as a separate devotion; especially in times of war, or of national anxiety, or of disaster.” It can be found on pages 154-5, and repeats the refrain, “O Lord, arise, help us; and deliver us for thy Name’s sake.”
Shorter prayers for peace can be found on pages 815-6 and can be said at any time. Below is one of the prayers:
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn
but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the
strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that
all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of
Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and
glory, now and for ever. Amen.
Let us join our prayers together with those who are praying and worshipping in our shared Anglican tradition and may our prayers for peace be answered by the Prince of Peace.
(click on Archbishop Naoum’s letter below for a larger version)
