THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Offaly columnist asks 'who are we becoming'

“We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet enriching many; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” – (2 Corinthians 6:10).

We live in a world groaning under the weight of grief and teetering on the edge. The noise is relentless. Everything clamours for attention, the trivial and the tragic collapse into the same scrolling feed. Scroll through any newsfeed, and you’ll see it: war, hunger, displacement, injustice, all collapsing into the same screen alongside celebrity gossip, flash sales, sports scores and cat videos. It’s disorienting. Dehumanising.

And it's easy to become numb. Easy to shrug and move on. But every now and then, a story breaks through, not because it is louder, but because it speaks to something deeper. Because it demands more than pity. It demands soul-searching. It asks us, quietly but fiercely; Who are we becoming? This week, I write with a heart both broken and burning, broken by the immense suffering being inflicted in our world, and burning with a defiant hope that perhaps, still, we can choose compassion over complicity.

Suffering beyond words

In Gaza, the suffering is beyond words. Over 60,000 people have been killed since October, including nearly 18,000 children. One in three hasn’t eaten in days. Children are dying, not because food doesn’t exist, but because it is deliberately denied. Aid trucks are blocked. Families are forced into overcrowded, militarised zones with barely any access to food, water, or medicine and then bombed. Civilians are shot while queuing for bread. Drones hover. Snipers wait. And the world looks on. This is not just war. This is an atrocity. It is calculated cruelty. It is evil made normal. And we must name it as such. And the breadlines become death sentences. This is not collateral damage. This is calculated cruelty.

It is the systematic dehumanisation of an entire people, not a tragic side effect, but a deliberate policy. And we must say it clearly: this is evil. And it is not happening in secret. It is being live-streamed, analysed, documented. And yet the world’s most powerful nations such as the UK, the US, the EU, continue to fund and arm it. While families in Gaza bury their children with their bare hands, Western governments sign contracts and shake hands. The silence is not just complicity, it is betrayal. Also there are still hostages that also need to be released and bodies murdered in October so atrociously that still need to be mourned. The prophet Isaiah cries out: "Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees... depriving the poor of their rights and withholding justice from the oppressed of my people..." (Isaiah 10:1–2). His words echo now.

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Not alone

But Gaza is not alone. In Sudan, ethnic cleansing and famine rage, largely in silence. People in El Fasher are dying of hunger and cholera. Aid is scarce. In Tigray and Amhara, many families still wait in limbo, many uncontactable since the war began. Over 1,000,000 people are estimated to have died, most never named.

In Ukraine, cities are reduced to rubble. Generations traumatised. Infrastructure gone. And winter will come again. Across East Africa, over 25 million people face hunger, not because there’s no food on earth, but because of climate chaos, conflict, and international neglect.

In Myanmar, in Yemen, in Haiti, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Afghanistan, the suffering continues. And still, we scroll. We swipe. We switch off. Where is our outrage? Where is our compassion? Where is our faith and prayers in action?

Global empathy

There is a dangerous asymmetry in global empathy. Some lives are grieved deeply and publicly. Others, Palestinian, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Congolese and many others are passed over with barely a pause. But there can be no hierarchy of human worth. As St Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile... for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). Jesus did not ask us to love selectively. He asked us to love our neighbour as ourselves, even and especially, when that neighbour lives under rubble, speaks another language, or worships another way. And yet we are told to be “neutral.” To be “balanced. But there is no balance between the bomb and the baby. No neutrality between siege and survival. No Gospel in silence. Some say, “It’s too political.” But if our faith cannot name injustice, if it cannot call for the protection of the innocent, then what is it for? As the prophet Micah reminds us: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

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There is light

This is not just about Gaza or Sudan or many of the other places in our world affected by conflict. It is about what kind of world we are shaping or tolerating with our silence. Other governments are watching. Other armies are taking notes. What we normalise today, others will repeat tomorrow. But even in the shadow of so much suffering, there is light. In Gaza, Sudan and many other conflict areas, doctors continue operating by torchlight. Teachers comfort terrified children. Journalists tell the truth even as their own families perish. In Gaza and Sudan, neighbours share scraps of food. In Ukraine, elderly women sweep broken streets with dignity. In Tigray, grandparents plant seeds of hope in scorched soil. Their courage is a rebuke to our apathy and a call to awaken our love.

So what do we do?

We pray, not to escape the world, but to be empowered to serve it. We write to our representatives. We demand ceasefires, food corridors, and an end to arms sales. We donate, we protest, we remember the names that others forget. We tell the truth in our churches, our classrooms, our kitchen tables. We say: enough. Not in our name. Because we were not made for numbness. We were made for love. Let us recover our ability to hear again, the cry of the poor, the refugee, the homeless, the abandoned, the grieving parents, the hungry child. These cries are not noise. They are holy.

They are the voice of Christ from the margins. "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40). Let us not turn peace into a slogan while war is the daily bread of the innocent. Let us not wait for leaders. Let us lead with our courage, our wallets, our prayers, our presence. Let us love, not just in theory, but in action. Because the question is not just “What is happening?” The question is: What are we becoming? And what will we choose while there is still time?

Thought for the week

As your thought for the week, let us recover our ability to hear again the cry of the poor, the cry of the hungry, the refugee, the homeless, the abused, the Earth itself. These cries are holy. These cries are Christ’s voice echoing from the margins. Let us not wait for others to act. Let us love, not just in thought, but with our hands, our words, our hope, our courage, our faith. Let us become the answer to someone else’s prayer.

Let me leave you with a heartfelt prayer from my Nana Scully's prayer book called, "A Prayer for the Broken and the Brave" and it goes as follows - "Lord of mercy, Open our ears to the cries rising from Gaza, from Sudan, from Ethiopia and Ukraine, from Haiti and Congo, and from our own doorsteps. Let us not grow numb. Let us not look away. Break our hearts for what breaks Yours. Disturb our comfort. Disarm our indifference. Set fire to our compassion. Teach us to see Your face in the grieving mother, the orphaned child, the silent refugee, the homeless, the victims, the prisoner, the forgotten, the hungry. Let our prayers become protest. Let our sorrow become solidarity. Let our faith become flesh in action, in courage, in love, in hope. Help us be the ones who do not look away. The ones who listen. The ones who remember. The ones who say: Not again. Not in our name. Not on our watch. For where there is life, there is hope. And hope begins not in the halls of power but in hearts willing to love without limits. In Your name Jesus, Amen."