Good afternoon everyone. I am Hussam. For those who don’t know me, I’m Catholic, Arab, Israeli, and of Palestinian origin. It’s complicated. I’m an oncologist, born and raised in Nazareth and now living in Haifa, a city on the sea in northern Israel, with my wife Chiara, who is Italian, and our two small children.

I met the Movement in 2008 when I was studying Medicine in Turin and encountered a group of people during the university elections. It was a very delicate period in my life, and I had decided to leave the university because I felt alone, but then I met these people, in particular a young man who then became my best friend and even the best man at our wedding, who gave me The Religious Sense in Arabic. When I returned home I read it. In the beginning it wasn’t easy, and I read it twice, but I understood that the questions it spoke about were the ones I was asking, and I said to myself: “If that fellow gave me this book, it’s for a reason: he wants me there.” So I returned to Turin, finished my studies in Medicine, and thanks to that encounter I am now a doctor and here speaking with you.

In the encounter with those people, I learned that there was another way of dealing with things. There was a love that was freely given to me, and I was only asked to return it. So when I finished university in 2016 and decided to return home to the Holy Land, I wanted to bring the beauty and fullness I had encountered in Italy to the Christians here, to the people who live here, so they could see what I had seen. I also had that “ideological” position that almost everyone here has: we Christians, we Arabs, were here first and we have to stay here. In the journey I’m going to tell you about, you will understand that this idea, which is ideological, collapsed immediately with the first storm, above all for me. What I came to understand through all the events I’ll tell you about is a line that Bishop Paolo Martinelli, apostolic vicar for southern Arabia, told us at the Assembly of the Middle East and then at the International Assembly of Leaders: “Being in mission means being sent by someone, to someone, with someone.” I had already understood this in the encounter in Turin, but later I understood it even better, being here, because the first things I did when I returned was to look for the community of the Movement. So I began spending time with them, but then slowly became distant because I wanted to dedicate myself to my work. But I wasn’t happy the way I had been in Italy, with the fullness and beauty I told you about. One day, the friends of the community invited me to dinner and I wanted to go, because I missed them. But the whole way there I was saying to myself: “Now they’ll begin asking ‘Where have you been? Why haven’t you come any more? Why haven’t you been in touch? You said it was the first thing you looked for…’.” The dinner was in Bethlehem and when I arrived I didn’t want to go in; I wanted to return home. Before going up the steps I was saying to myself: “No, no, now they’ll get angry…” I went in and as soon as he saw me, our friend Ettore, a member of Memor Domini who has been here for twenty years, gave me a hug and said, “We’ve missed you!” That hug was very meaningful for me. I said to myself, “Where do you find a hug like that?”, and I still carry it in my heart to this day. In fact, in 2018 when they asked me to take responsibility for the community in the Holy Land, I said yes right away because it was a way to give back the love I continually receive.

I’ll tell you two things to help you understand what I was saying in the beginning, with Bishop Martinelli’s words: “Sent by someone, to someone, with someone.” This year, the year of the war, has been very important for me. I have personally taken many steps, and the whole community has taken a great many steps.

On October 7, 2023 we were on holiday together. For the first time, we organized it for the beginning of the year instead of the end, so it would coincide with the Beginning Day. I’ll explain the complexity of our community, which is mixed. There’s me, my wife and children, and I’m Arab-Israeli. There’s another Arab-Israeli young woman, an Italian young man who’s doing his doctorate in Haifa, some Memores Domini who live in Jerusalem, four Palestinian women in Bethlehem and two Hebrew-speaking Catholic young women. Our vacation was October 6-8 in the little town of Abu Ghosh, twenty minutes north of Jerusalem. On the 6th we began with the introduction, games, nice weather, a nice environment. We woke up on the 7th with all the videos and news of what had happened in the kibbutzes near Gaza. Right away there were moments of agitation and anxiety. There were also four Italians with us to accompany us, including our visitor, and in the beginning we decided to continue the vacation, because in any case, it wasn’t possible to leave. We heard the rockets and bombings and began praying Morning Prayer together. That was the first important point for me. I understood that yes, the unity was given by the circumstance, but we were united because we were all looking in the same direction. I was very struck by a line Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, our Patriarch, wrote to the entire Diocese. “Where there is disorder, only God can make order.” That day could have been the most disordered of our history, but instead it progressed with incredible order. Only God could have made order, and all of us were realizing this, all of us were looking in the same direction. As we did the Beginning Day, which we moved back to the morning, a rocket fell three hundred meters from us (and there were children with us!). It was beautiful the way we went to the bunker with an order never seen before, like a family. The Arab asked about the Jew, the Jew asked about the Arab. We really discovered we were brothers and sisters who were having a vacation together. In the afternoon, to lighten the tension a bit, we played some games, until the news arrived that the check-point between Jerusalem and Bethlehem might be closed indefinitely. For those who don’t know, there’s a wall between Israel and Palestine and you need special permission to go through the check-points. If they remained closed indefinitely, they would be stuck in Israel and unable to return to their families. So we said Mass quickly in order to depart soon. As a friend of ours from Bethlehem was leaving, she said with tears in her eyes: “I have to return home to my family, but I don’t want to miss the intensity of what we’re experiencing here.” I hugged her and said: “Look, it doesn’t end here. It begins here!” And our friend from Italy said: “We are one.” This was our motto all year long, and I’ll tell you why.

We returned home, and at the time we didn’t know yet where things were going, and we continued going ahead without knowing. Ten days after the beginning of the war, Cardinal Pizzaballa called for a day of prayer and fasting, and this really struck me. In these months the presence of Pizzaballa has been fundamental, crucial for me and our community, because he has been the only one to call for peace between the two peoples who were crying out for revenge. In a letter to the whole Diocese he wrote: “Christ won over the world, loving it,” and this must give us the courage to say who we are. Thanks to what I told you about before, from the first encounter to when I returned and Ettore hugged me, up to the vacation, I have understood that Christ won me over by loving me, offering me His love, and asks me to return it. This must give me the courage to go and say who I am.

On that day of prayer and fasting, my wife and I went to Mass. It was a Tuesday evening and I was very struck that the church was packed, because people usually only go on Sunday. There we discovered that we were part of a people, a people that is crying out for peace. For this reason, initially at my wife’s request, but then judging it together, we decided to move back the date of our four-month-old daughter Marta’s Baptism, first, because judging together with the friends, we were afraid, not knowing how things would go; second, because we wanted our child to be part of that people; and third, to entrust her to the Only One who gave us hope in a moment when our country lacked hope. The Baptism was very beautiful. We celebrated it here in Haifa, in a small chapel of the Hebrew-speaking Catholics (the parish priest is Italian and we’ve become friends in these years) and the rite was conducted in three languages: Italian, Arab and Hebrew. I always tell my friends: “Find me a place in these times where these three languages are found together!” It was really a great celebration to entrust our daughter to the Only One who gave us hope in that moment. I’ll also say, as a father, that the most beautiful form of love you can give your children is to entrust them, because if the love is not that one, something’s not right. I understood even more that love characterizes my life and accompanies me in the work I do.

I’m an oncologist in a hospital here in Haifa, a mixed hospital, where there are Jews, Arabs, Christians and Muslims, so the climate is pretty tense. There was an important conversation with my Arab Muslim secretary, whom I told about my encounter with the Movement through a friend who had given me The Religious Sense. At a certain point, she asked me: “How can you manage to speak always with everyone and say what you think without bothering them? Maybe even understanding the other?” I told her: “Look, the founder of our Movement that I told you about said it’s possible to love those different from you only because you are loved. I receive that love continually.” And she asked me: “So you understood this from reading the books of that founder?” “Not only, no. I understood it being with my friends.” And she: “Do friends like this exist?” It made me understand that the world thirsts for our friendship, for what we live. I began to understand more and more that we are here not because we were the first, but for a task, to announce to the world the friendship they truly thirst for.

I’ll tell you about another episode that happened with a Jewish patient of mine, of whom I was very fond, who died on April 28. He had metastatic lung cancer and I had tried everything with him, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, surgery on his spine, but everything went badly and his disease progressed, and I felt I had failed him. The last week of his life, his wife called me: “Look, we can’t handle it anymore. He’s always in bed, unmanageable. What should we do?” I said: “Bring him to me, and I’ll admit him. We know where he’s going, he should die with dignity.” So I brought him to the ward right away, and went to visit him, and he said: “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” Inside, I got angry: “Everything went badly!” The next day, at seven in the morning, I went first thing to see him and discovered he’d sent his wife to buy some gifts for my children. I told him: “But you know where you’re going. Why did you do it?” He said: “I know very well where I’m going, but thanks to you I’ve looked at the disease in another way.” That was another call for me: I’m not there to heal (I want to heal all of them!) but to communicate another thing. And that man died happy.

That morning as I was leaving the room with the two gifts for my children, and that lesson that had so moved and affected me, I saw a nurse with whom I’ve been friends for five years. Every time we talk, above all about the war, he tells me: “Your wife is Italian, and Italy is the most beautiful country in the world: escape! What are you doing here? Why do you stay? You can go…” That day, he saw me and I told him about the patient, and he said: “For five years you’ve been trying to explain to me why you want to stay here. Today I understand. You have to stay here.” Truly, if we remain, it’s for a task, a very great task.

Discovering His love more, I’ve also discovered the value of our community more and more. This year we discovered we are like a family, sisters and brothers, and we’ve begun doing things together, like the Angelus every day at one o’clock, which for me is a very important moment, when we stop to make memory of what unites us. And then School of Community every week, albeit online, and giving a communional judgement, a judgement lived in communion. Now we have the idea of a day-long get together once a month. How did we discover we are sisters and brothers? We don’t cut each other any slack; it’s not like we “hug” and that’s all. Siblings look each other in the face. As I said before, our community is mixed and it’s not easy; there are always frictions among people who are different. I’ll just tell you about a call I had with three Palestinian women about the many problems that were arising. It was at 10 at night, and it began with angry tones (“We want things to be this way!”) and at a certain point I got angry too. “Why am I here at ten thirty at night talking with you? Because I love you! You are fundamental in the journey we are making, because you are the first reminder and call for me. The same way the others are fundamental, too.” And they asked me: “How can we live this way?” “Through belonging to a place.” And they asked: “How can one belong more and more?” “There’s a form: joining the Fraternity.” And all three of them said together: “We want to join the Fraternity!” I was really struck, because at a particular moment you decide to return that love: instead of doing as the world does, you decide to return that love.

I’ll just read a passage from a Tischreden, in which Fr. Giussani said: Those who believe in Jesus are seized by the power of the mystery of Christ, are brought within His personality and so become one body, in the literal sense of the word; this body grows, is destined to grow, to be fruitful. The relationship between Christ and the companionship He is in, makes this companionship fruitful: this companionship is destined to take the world, to possess the world. And then he continued: “It is not a sentiment that unites, not a social phenomenon that is expressed, but it is the Mystery of being that speaks of Itself in a new way […]. And this companionship with Christ is destined to be fruitful, to enter into the entire world. As it gradually grows, it becomes more evident that it constitutes a people within human society. It is different people that perceives, understands, judges, loves, decides and achieves in a different way” (Una presenza che cambia [A Presence that Changes], BUR, Milan 2004, p. 368).

In fact, I would like to close exactly as I began: “Sent by someone, to someone, with someone” is what has characterized my life. This is the newness of my life that makes me be more of a man, more of a father to my children, more of a husband to my wife, more of an oncologist to my patients, and more of a friend to my friends. Thank you.