"Reconciliation is not forgetting the wounds. It is refusing to let those wounds define the future."

This time of year is always difficult. The pain returns as I remember the terrible events of that day. The faces of those who were killed and the suffering of their families are very present in the media these days. My thoughts go back to the many funerals in which I participated. I still hear the voices of the victims and the cries of their loved ones. My prayer is often interrupted by the question: Why is there so much pain and hatred?

If it is true that time is a healer, then we still need time. Yet suffering can either harden us or deepen us. Three years after October 7, the real question is not simply what happened to us, but who we have decided to become.

Will we be able to build a society free from hatred? Will we be able to show that reconciliation is not forgetting the wounds, but refusing to let those wounds define the future? We cannot choose our history, but together we can choose what history produces within us.

The smallest communities often carry the greatest hope. They prove that people can belong to one another without belonging against one another. The Vicariate of St. James has a unique opportunity to bear witness to a Christian truth: peace begins the moment pain stops having the final word.

I believe in our capacity to speak the language of encounter and peace, even when there is so much pain and fear within us. In a land wounded by conflict, every gesture of friendship, every act of solidarity, and every refusal to surrender to hatred becomes a sign of hope. Our vocation is not only to pray for peace, but also to become artisans of peace, one encounter at a time.