Preaching the News for Sunday

A handshake heard around the world

In this Sunday’s gospel, a long-suffering woman touches Jesus’ cloak to be healed and is blessed by him with the words, “Go in peace.” More than 30 years of sectarian and political violence in Northern Ireland caused suffering . . .

Sunday’s gospel contains the moving scene of a long-suffering woman with a hemorrhage who touches Jesus’ cloak to be healed. She speaks with Jesus and is blessed by him with the words, “Go in peace.” More than 30 years of sectarian and political violence in Northern Ireland caused suffering on all sides, but a private meeting and an iconic public handshake this Wednesday between Queen Elizabeth II and former Irish Republican Army (IRA) leader Martin McGuinness demonstrated how far peace has progressed in recent years.

The meeting between the queen, the titular head of the British armed forces, and McGuinness, a former senior commander in the now defunct IRA which waged a terrorist campaign with the aim of uniting Ireland, would have been unthinkable until recently. The queen’s cousin, Lord Mountbatten, was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979 while on a fishing trip in the Republic of Ireland.

But 14 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement that paved the way for shared government in Northern Ireland, reconciliation is gaining momentum. A stable administration is making its own decisions on bread-and-butter issues, and British-Irish relations are better than they have ever been.

Sources: Articles by Jamie Smyth for The Financial Times, the BBC, and Megan Gibson for TIME


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