Christian Unity in Braniel/Gilnahirk
During the week of prayer for Christian Unity, the Churches in Braniel and Gilnahirk were invited to take assemblies in Our Lady at St Patrick’s College (Roman Catholic). The four participating Churches were St Dorothea’s Church, Braniel Community Church, Braniel Church and Gilnahirk Presbyterian Church.
This year the theme was crossing barriers and we focussed on the different types of walls which exist in our world and in our minds – walls to keep people out (eg Great Wall of China, Trump’s Mexican border wall); walls to keep people in (eg Berlin Wall, or the walls of a prison or concentration camp); and walls to keep people apart (eg the so called “peace” walls in Belfast. We told the story of Gertrude, a Jewish woman who was evacuated to Belfast in 1938 from Vienna. She had seen many horrible things before she was evacuated in a train organised by the Quakers. Years later she and her husband were on holiday in Co Clare, when they met a German couple. The husband, Fritz, had been an German soldier stationed in Vienna during the war. Gertrude was able to overcome the walls in her life and she and her husband became close friends with the German couple, thanks to the Christian faith they all now shared. A fine example of not hiding behind the walls of division, but reaching out to difference, in grace and forgiveness and enriching life. An example we can learn here in Northern Ireland.