A Hopeful Pilgrim: Sr. Martha Ann Kirk Among Holy Land Peacebuilders

I have been invited by Friends of Sabeel North America to be part of a Delegation of Bishops and Church Leaders in the West Bank starting May 1, 2025. Women Wage Peace have invited my friend, Rev. Julie Rowe, and me to join them and about 60 groups building the People's Peace Summit in Jerusalem, May 8 and 9. See the growing hope--It's time for peace! Reflect on and please join us signing the Mothers Call for negotiation, not more killing. See a film of these compassionate and courageous women.

I have been invited to Bethlehem University where young people have contributed to Artistic Bridges, the global education project I initiated. Learn about the nature center that the children attend to learn of nature in Palestine. I will be sharing about Artistic Bridges that and encouraging more participation.  Rev. Rowe will be interviewing women building peace as part of her doctoral work.   

Palm Sunday, 2025. My reflections begin today, Palm Sunday at our church, Mission Concepcion, a World Heritage Site, we walk holding palm and remembering the stories. Manipulative people lead a crowd to violence. uncaring leaders hurt an innocent person. Yet the story which seems to end in death, ends in forgiveness and love stronger than death.

Near the Mission I biked along the beautiful river path seeing palms and remembering that almost 300 years ago the indigenous people cut these and brought them to the church to reenact the story. All creation calls us to remember. The bright green of spring is transforming the bare branches of winter along, Yanaguana, now called the San Antonio River. 

April 14, 2025. I had the privilege of being a scholar-in-residence at Tantur Ecumenical Institute in 1994 and of returning to the area working on a book Women of Bible Lands and to lead tours to learn and to encourage peacebuilding. Over the years I have gotten to know Father David Neuhaus, a Jesuit in Jerusalem.  A number of times we have spoken at the Friday "Women in Black" demonstrations.  Israeli and Palestinian friends would let me hold one of their signs "We refuse to be enemies." Fr. David was interviewed by America Media, "Interview: Holy Land Christians raise their voices for the suffering people of Palestine."  We Incarnate Word Sisters remember our founding call, "Our Lord Jesus Christ suffering seeks relief at your hands."  We must listen, we must reach out where there is suffering. 

Good Friday, April 18, 2025. I am thinking of my friend Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a Nobel Peace Laureate in Northern Ireland who has been fasting and praying for 40 days for the children of Gaza. She says that what is happening there is "against international law and inhumane." 

In 1994 when the Redemptorist priests at Marianella Center in Dublin hired me to give a week-long retreat and a week-long workshop, I asked Mairead if I could visit and learn from her.  In Belfast, at the Peace People Office, Maguire took time to mentor me in community organizing and a spirituality of nonviolence in the face of injustice.   I was with her next at the Women's Ordination Worldwide (WOW) first international conference in Dublin, Ireland, June 29 to July 1, 2001, where she spoke.  That also was teaching wisdom about community organizing and a spirituality of nonviolence. 

Now I am actively involved in Peace on Earth by 2030, also called the Peace Games. Solid research has been done, and solid data reveals that creative nonviolence is much more effective than violence.  One can learn and one can build positive peace.  There are 23 indicators of growth that can be seen on the Positive Peace Index  The United States ranks highly on economic indexes but ranks 132 out 163 countries in peace building on 2024 Index. 

The Charter for Compassion, Pace e Bene, the Catholic Nonviolence Institute, Pax Christ, and Peace on Earth by 2030 are linking groups and individuals substantially moving the human family towards a tipping point of commitment to positive growth rather than the old patterns division, destruction, and death. The global tipping point would be 40 million people. 

The first time I was in Jerusalem in 1991, at the UN Office, I said to one of the staff, we hope and pray that there may be peace here.  The man looked me in the eye and said, "Your country does not seek peace, you seek to sell weapons. You want us to be your market. Our children are being killed." Ever since I have been researching and trying to disprove what he was saying.  I have not been able to, in fact, I learn more and more that we are called to conversion in the U.S.  We are called to economic conversion in light of Isaiah's words, "Beat your swords into ploughshares and your spears into pruning hooks."  Transform from being makers of weapons to makers of things to grow and to harvest. 

I learned from our guest speaker Leah Garces.