Speaking in Westminster Abbey at an ecumenical service on Dec. 4 “to celebrate the contribution of Christians in the Middle East,” Prince Charles recalled his “great joy” upon meeting Luma Khudher, a Dominican Sister of St. Catherine of Siena, in England in October. He described how as Isis extremists advanced on the Christian town of Qaraqosh in 2014, Sister Luma “got behind the wheel of a minibus crammed full of her fellow Christians and drove the long and dangerous road to safety.”

Now she has returned to the Nineveh Plains to help re-establish the Christian presence there. “Like the 100,000 other Christians who were forced from the Nineveh Plains…they left behind the ruins of their homes and churches and the shattered remnants of their communities,” he said.

Prince Charles said the return of Christians to Iraq represented “the most wonderful testament to the resilience of humanity and to the extraordinary power of faith to resist even the most brutal efforts to extinguish it.”

“The sister told me, movingly, of her return to Nineveh with her fellow sisters three years later, and of their despair at the utter destruction they found there,” he said. “But like so many others, they put their faith in God, and today the tide has turned—nearly half of those displaced having gone back to rebuild their homes and their communities.”

Prince Charles said the return of Christians to Iraq represented “the most wonderful testament to the resilience of humanity and to the extraordinary power of faith to resist even the most brutal efforts to extinguish it.”

The prince expressed his hope that Christians and Muslims will again live together in peace, saying that throughout history they have “shown that it is possible to live side by side as neighbors and friends.”

From Catholic News Service

This article appears in January 21 2019.