This article appeared in the April 2022 issue of Newslink, the diocesan magazine for Limerick and Killaloe, part of the United Diocese of Tuam, Limerick & Killaloe. Photos by Joc Sanders
Usually at this time of year my spirits are high as I watch the new life of Spring accelerate away. But this year is different – my spirits are low. A part of God’s wider garden is being ripped apart as I write in mid-March. We are watching the crucifixion of the people of Ukraine. The news is full of images of wrecked apartment buildings, images of men saying goodbye to weeping wives and children fleeing as refugees, images of men and women in uniform preparing to kill other men and women in any way they can.
Ordinary people and governments here in Ireland and throughout Europe are responding with extraordinary generosity, collecting goods and money to help Ukrainian refugees and to provide humanitarian aid. But images of destruction and refugees from wars in Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia have not elicited quite the same generous response. Is it because the disaster in Ukraine is happening close to us in Europe, to people who look so much like us? Are we unduly partial in our response?
Meanwhile, NATO Governments seem intent to feed just enough weapons into Ukraine to keep the fighting going, to weaken Russia without risking a wider, even more destructive war, possibly a nuclear one. We do not know how this war will end, but we do know that the economic sanctions already imposed will make life difficult for us all, not just in Russia, but here in Ireland and throughout the world.
We see evil manifested in Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but it is not the Russian people who are evil, any more than the Ukrainian people are. As Christians, we must pray not just for the people of Ukraine, but also of Russia, and for an early negotiated peace. We must pray for the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, of Russia and NATO, that hard and warlike hearts may be softened, that they are led into God’s paths of peace and justice. And we must pray for grace for ourselves to resist evil and do God’s will.
Yet, as well as evil there is hope in God’s garden. Evil will not triumph in the end. Easter will soon be with us, bringing a triumphant resurrection. Our fields and gardens are burgeoning. In April we will see the victory of life over death re-enacted once again in the growth of our crops, the blooming of fruit trees and the beauty of flowers. Here are a few images taken last April in the garden I share with my wife Marty, where God is always to be found.
