The Bishops' Conference of Scotland

🕊️ JOURNALS FROM JERUSALEM - "A People Who Need Peace"

Abu Suleiman, who leads a Bedouin tribe in the West Bank that the Holy Land Coordination visited on Saturday, gives a brief message to people in the UK.

"My message to our friends in your country is to look after the Bedouin. The British, when they were here in Palestine, or in Jordan, they looked after the Bedouin - they helped the Bedouin in the Middle East.

"We want them now to look after the Bedouin, to speak with the Israeli government, to ask them not to make a problem for them because they are not political, they are people who need peace. "

🎥 - James Abbott, Catholic Bishops' Conference (England and Wales)

📝JOURNALS FROM JERUSALEM - A Day With the Mihtawish Bedouin

🚌On Saturday, the Bishops and delegates of the Holy Land Coordination travelled east of Jerusalem to visit the Mihtawish Bedouin community and the Comboni Sisters who have accompanied them for more than twelve years.

🐐The Mihtawish are a Palestinian Bedouin community living in the West Bank. Like many Bedouin families, they are semi-nomadic by tradition, organised around extended family, hospitality, and a deep connection to land and livestock. Most families live in simple, temporary structures and face severe shortages of electricity, water, sanitation, and access to public services.

🧑‍🏫For over a decade, the Comboni Sisters have remained close to the Bedouin communities of this area, accompanying families across 13 villages. Their work is rooted in long-term relationships and regular presence. They support five kindergarten schools, provide healthcare and social assistance, and run women’s empowerment programmes that foster dignity, resilience, and opportunity.

⛪Through their presence, the Comboni Sisters embody a Church that remains close to the marginalised and is attentive to the human dignity of all, values that Pope Leo calls us to commit to in Dilexi Te.

🧵We heard from women who have worked with the Sisters to learn skills such as sewing and embroidery, to study English, and to pursue educational opportunities ensuring they are protagonists in their own lives and agents of change in their own communities.

🏘️The hills where the Mihtawish live are surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements which continue to encroach in on the Bedouins causing them to fear they will be squeezed out. A new settler outpost has appeared recently within walking distance of their farm. While we were there, we saw settlers approach and observe the community from nearby hills (pictured) and we witnessed new settlement buildings under construction.

🪨The women told us they are afraid to sleep due to increased settler violence in recent months. Settlers have come in the nights and taken sheep and goats and during the day they often intimidate and harass the Mihtawish, throw stones, and there have been incidents where children were attacked. Community leaders explained how settlers have entered their land, photographed Bedouin livestock and presented these images to police as false claims of theft against the Bedouins.

❤️In the first image is Rhagad with her younger sister. Her name means “ease of living” or “comfortable life.” She is 10 years old. Rhagad deserves to grow into the future that her name promises. But the older women of her community shared their fear of what lies ahead: if the settlers continue to come, where will the Mihtawish go?

🕊️When asked what the women wanted us to tell people on their behalf, they said: "We want to live in peace. Tell your people at home that our people want to be free; we want to live freely and securely on our own land."

📸Image Credit - Marcin Mazur: Catholic Bishops' Conference (England and Wales)

Holy Mass of the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time | 18 January 2026
This music is licensed under one license number: A-623356

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity invites Christians across Scotland to pause, pray, and reflect on Christ’s call to unity among His followers. Christian unity Week is observed from 18 to 25 January. This week invites Christians to reflect prayerfully on Christ’s call to unity and to place this intention before Him.

Reflecting on the theme One Body, One Spirit, Archbishop Leo reminds us:

"In Scotland we are blessed to share friendships with Christians of other traditions, friendships rooted not in convenience but in a genuine desire to follow Christ more faithfully. The Catholic Church in Scotland has officially acknowledged friendship with the Scottish Episcopal Church; The St Ninian Declaration reminds us of our shared witness, charity and service. The St Margaret Declaration, meanwhile, encourages honest and warm dialogue grounded in truth with our friends in the Church of Scotland. These commitments do not gloss over sincerely held differences of the past or the present. Rather, we endeavour to see in each other a fellow disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, and to grow together in charity as brothers and sisters in Christ. We acknowledge real differences between our Churches, and we do so without fear, because friendship among Christians is not a threat to faith but a fruit of it. So we pray for unity by placing ourselves before Christ, asking that He deepen our love for His Church, strengthen our respect for one another, and lead us, in His time and by His grace, closer to the unity He desires.”

Saint Anthony, abbot, often called the father of Christian monasticism, lived a life of radical Gospel simplicity. As a young man, he was deeply moved by Christ’s words to sell what one has and give to the poor, and he freely gave away his inheritance to live a life of prayer, fasting and solitude.

Unlike Saint Francis of Assisi, with whom he is often compared, Anthony spent most of his life as a hermit in the desert. There, through asceticism and constant prayer, he became a powerful witness to spiritual freedom. Yet his solitude was never selfish. Many sought him out for counsel, healing and guidance, and his holiness drew others to the same way of life.

Later in life, Anthony helped organise a loose community of hermits, laying foundations for monastic life in the Church. He also stood firmly for the faith, supporting persecuted Christians and later opposing the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ.

Saint Anthony died in solitude at a great age, having spent his life in prayer and spiritual battle. His witness continues to inspire those seeking a life rooted in simplicity, faith and total trust in God.