September 3rd, 2024If the War Goes On
1st anniversary lament for the conflict in Gaza
“If the War Goes On”
Four-part Lament for the Anniversary of the Massacre and Genocide precipitated by Events of October 7, 2023
As the tragic anniversary of October 7th, 2023, approaches, the Mennonite Church Canada Palestine-Israel Network offers this flexible liturgical resource to be used in congregations. Its components are designed to be used in worship on the four Sundays leading up to, or surrounding October 7, 2024. Through song, prayer, and story, they help us to keep holding in our hearts the people and the churches of Palestine —and others living in zones of war and oppression. The liturgical helps that follow have been shaped, with permission, by rabbis and others two groups: “Halachic Left” and “All That’s Left.” [https://www.halachicleft.org/; https://allthatsleftcollective.com/] In the introduction to their guided readings for Tisha b’av, a Jewish holy day commemorating the destruction of the two temples, they ask:
"How do we internalize that our grief for Israeli victims of October 7th is not counter to, but inextricable from, mourning the loss of tens of thousands of Gazans? What does mourning look like when we are not in the aftermath of the devastation but still in its midst? Can we confront trauma in a way that portends redemption instead of using our pain as a justification for further destruction?” None of these questions have simple answers, but, for now, we exist in a place of brokenness and rupture… [a place of] of inarticulable horror."
The contents of the resource accessed below include:
1. How to use this resource
2. Introducing the service of lament
3. Liturgies for September 15, 22, 29, and October 6
4. Background and Stories