News from the Comboni missionary community in Beirut (Lebanon)

This time, I am not sending you the ‘war bulletin’ from Sudan (where, by the way, the war continues, despite the media having forgotten about it), but from Lebanon, where I came last week to visit our scholastics and their formator. In the meantime, I took the opportunity to do my spiritual exercises in a Jesuit house on the border with Syria, in the Zahle area.

Despite the silence of the retreat, we heard more than once at night – and today in broad daylight – some explosions, but all far away from us.

As far as we can tell, the current attacks are only happening in strategic places in Hesb. Lebanon is a small country, but it is divided into areas, so those who do not live in the Shia area, life seems to go on as normal. We are in the north of Beirut, in a Christian area, and we are far from the rocket explosions and columns of smoke rising south of the city.

Even today, however, as we drove home along the country’s main highway that runs along the sea from south to north, we saw with our own eyes that for every 4 or 5 cars heading north, one was packed with Shiites fleeing the war zone: cars and trucks crammed with women, children, suitcases and mattresses, fleeing north. Where exactly? Each family has its own direction in these journeys of hope.

As always, when faced with any kind of war, the question is: “Why? For what purpose? For whom?”

Lebanon is a pearl of rare beauty, but the cruelty of the powerful knows no reason.

As always, I ask for your prayers.

Father Diego Dalle Carbonare, mccj