Honoring the dead in Haifa

On Friday, November 13, 2015, at the time of the religion class, Father Roman took a group of children to visit the Catholic cemetery in Haifa. The children gathered around the grave of Noah, the brother of one of the children who had died shortly after birth and having been baptized. Each child lit a candle and placed a flower on the grave. Father Roman read the words of Jesus when he promises that there is place for everybody in his Father’s house and that he will take all of his disciples and all people of good will there. After some words of explanation, the group read together the verses from Psalm 119, which begin with the letters of Noah’s name, a Jewish tradition, and then also prayed traditional Christian prayers.

On Saturday, November 14, 2015, the Russian speaking community in Haifa celebrated mass in the Catholic cemetery according to their yearly tradition. After a period of storms and rain, the faithful gathered in the cemetery to pray for those who have died. At the beginning of the mass, Father Sergey invited everyone to pray in a special way for the victims of the attacks in Paris and to pray for their families. He also suggested that those present pray for all those buried in the cemetery but have no one to pray for them.

In his homily, he emphasized that we, Christians, should not fear death because we know that the separation from this world is in fact a passage to our heavenly home, where the merciful Father is awaiting us and forgives all our sins. In the same spirit, he drew attention to the fact that around us there are the graves of Christians coming from various nations in the world: Arabs, Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, Rumanians, Slovaks and others. Perhaps, here on earth the representatives of these nations did not sense great sympathy for one another however it will be a great and real joy for all of us when we discover that in the house of our merciful Father in heaven there is no distinction between these peoples and all are beloved children of God.