By Peter Bugden
BRISBANE Catholic families, whose relatives in Iraq were driven out of Alqosh by Islamic State terrorists on August 7 had taken heart a few days earlier from a prayer campaign launched in Brisbane.
“It’s nice to know people are thinking of us,” Dina Nona said at the St Joseph and St Anthony Church, Bracken Ridge, in Brisbane, after an ecumenical prayer vigil on August 3 for peace in Iraq and other troubled spots in the world.
A prayer campaign was launched at the vigil.
Miss Nona is a Chaldean Catholic hailing from Iraq, and she and members of her extended family living in Brisbane were at the vigil, along with a family of Syriac Catholics from Iraq who are Bracken Ridge parishioners.
She is a niece of Archbishop Amel Nona of Mosul who was forced out of the northern Iraq city in recent weeks along with thousands of Christians when Islamic State (or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – ISIS) militants raided.
Since the day of the vigil the situation in Iraq has worsened with thousands more having to flee.
Relatives of the families who were at the vigil were forced to leave their homes in Alqosh and Qaraqosh.
Miss Nona, at the vigil, said she and her family, were “scared and terrified” for their relatives.
Her father Rany, brother of Archbishop Nona, was also at the vigil with his wife and family.
Mr Nona’s cousin Asaad Jarjees, who was at the vigil with his family, said it was a day-to-day existence for their relatives in Iraq.
Speaking since the exodus from Alqosh, he said the situation was “getting worse and worse”.
“The temperature in the shade is 43 degrees,” he said. “Many people, especially the kids, die from dehydration.”
Bracken Ridge parish priest Fr Gerry Hefferan said the vigil “was solidarity in carrying the cross, with its suffering, together in love and the Hope that Jesus gives”.
“It is very hard for the West to understand what it must be like to be a Church of martyrs, a Church of Calvary, where the prayer is so deep that, like the Garden of Gethsemane, we can actually cry like Jesus with heavy sorrows,” he said in his homily.
“And yet it is with hope that we come today, hope to celebrate – also to grieve – but to hope in Jesus Christ because Friday of Holy Week is Good Friday. Jesus prayed, suffered and died to bring us life.”
About 130 people attended the vigil.
The parish is encouraging others in Brisbane archdiocese and beyond to join its Pray@8 prayer campaign for the people of Iraq and other troubled areas. The aim is for people to stop at 8pm each night in their own homes to be united in prayer.
