Today I’m focussing on the promise of peace that Advent brings us. This promise is laid out in the vision Isaiah shares in the 1st reading:
“He will wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between many peoples; these will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.”
Although we always long for peace these words have particular resonance today when the threat and horror of war is both real and close.
Peace comes as a gift and a grace, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing we can do to prepare for it and nurture it. Anyone involved in conflict resolution will testify that peace requires work and is hard won.
If we long for the peace Isaiah speaks of we have to be prepared to have a hard look at ourselves. We need to acknowledge our fears and prejudices. We need to be prepared to put ourselves aside, to let go of some dearly held understandings. We need to be prepared to trust people who may have given us good reason to be suspicious. We need to be willing to compromise, to listen and to allow ourselves to be changed by what we hear.
Follow the Star suggests that Advent calls us to seek peace through service and humility. It calls us to look at how we shape our lives and our interactions in ways that help to build and share peace with others. It brings to mind St Benedict’s instruction to organise things in the community so that “no one is disturbed in the house of God.”
Where is Christ calling you to seek and nurture peace in your life this Advent?