The season of Advent may seem vague to many people. We stress that we are in waiting for the coming, the full coming, of Christ. This is a season of longing for a more intense sharing in the life and work of Christ: past, present and future glory.
Walk to the beginning of this Advent season and be grasped by the words of the prophet Isaiah, “They will beat their swords into plow shares.” What a vibrant image that people will come to the point in their lives where they will take their weapons of war, (i.e., swords made of steel) and beat them (i.e., change them) into a plow share that will be used to grow crops. We will move from fighting and killing one another and move to caring for one another as human beings by growing food.
Spend some time during this Advent thinking ‘what are the implications of such a prayer’?
What demands does this part of the Word of God make on me? On our Church? On our world?
Right now the entire world society is experiencing three significant wars: the Ukriane, Gaza and the Sudan in Africa. Many Canadians will say that we do not have boots on the groud, that is, we do not soldiers actively fighting in this war. But we are paying for this war with our tax payer monies. The war in the Ukraine is affecting us by our contributions of missals and equipment. These wars are not somewhere far away from us.
Christians are a people of peace. We work and try to build a world, a society, that is built on and energized by peace-building.
First, our prayer, our spiritual reflections are toward peace. How wonderful it is to have Christians pray for world peace, national peace and peace in our family each and every Sunday. We do not skit around the controversial positions of war-making. Our prayers are always in the nitty-gritty of peace-building.
In our country we try to build in values and procedures that leave no one out. It is essential to peace-building that we bring all the poor and the marginalized to share in the benefits of our society. We are working to bridge the gap between the one percent (the people are the very tope of the economic ladder) with the working poor. Peace-building is not some polite words in our church services, but very concrete actions, laws and structures of taxation to create a fair world for everyone.
Peace building means that we are bringing respect and value to everyone that makes up our society. At the moment there are many new comers into our contry. Peace buiding means to see each person as an equal, a person of inestimable value.
When the ancient blacksmith would hammer the iron swords into a new instrument it took a lot of hard work. Our season of Advent presents that challenge. Work toward changing what is war-making into what is peace building. Grow grapes and wheat for your fellow human being!
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