Peace is inclusion, not seclusion

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Tuesday in Advent - December 10, 2024

Isaiah 40:1-11; Matthew 18: 12-14

At times in the name of peace, we play the game of closing our eyes. It is like when we wish to urgently clean a surface, we push the rubbish under the rug and make everything appear neat on the floor. That cannot be peace. When we have a problem, the solution is not, to do away with all those who seem to be creating the problem. The solution would be to find out what really is the problem and what could be the right way of solving it. That alone can lead us to true and lasting peace.

The Lord never rejects us just because we are problematic, or because we are unfaithful or faint hearted. The Lord goes on trying with us endlessly; the Lord never grows tired of being merciful or of consoling us. In spite of knowing how fragile and vulnerable we are, we go on with our haughtiness! But the Lord never gives up; like a shepherd feeding his flock, the Lord gathers us in his arms and leads us to rest.

That is the peace we are promised. That peace will come only when we decide to come back to the embrace of the Lord. The Lord shall never forsake us, nor reject us. But we need to come back to the Lord, when we stray away from him; we need to get back to the bosom of the shepherd, like the sheep that lost its way. Then there shall be peace. 

Peace would not come into a house, or a family, or a community, by trying to eliminate the one causing the problem, we do not arrive at peace! It is the same with our selves too – by eliminating or hiding or repressing that part of ourselves which causes problem, we do not grow up to the salvation promised by the Lord. The Lord calls us to an integral conversion, a total transformation after the heart of the Lord – from where our peace shall come!

The Way to Peace is Compassion

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Monday in Advent - December 09, 2024

Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 5: 17-26 

From the week of hope, we pass on to the week of peace, as the Sunday indicated to us. Rightly, the responsorial psalm indicates to us: I will hear what God proclaims: for he proclaims peace to his people. But what kind of peace is the Lord announcing? That is an important point to clarify to ourselves. It is a peace that comes out of a change, and not from status quo, out of a radical change!

We hear of that change in the first reading today - the blind shall see, the deaf shall hear, the lame shall leap and the mute shall shout for joy! Your sorrow will turn to joy and your hopelessness shall turn to a salvific experience! This is the kind of change that the Lord is speaking to us about. This is the peace, a joyful and fulfilling peace, that the Lord announces to us.

But how will this change come about? The Gospel responds: when we really care for each other! Just as those brethren brought that man to Jesus amidst all odds, when we go out of our way to address the sorrows and heartaches of our brothers and sisters - these changes shall take place and peace shall flourish. Unlike the pharisees and the scribes who were sitting around there waiting to judge, if we really feel the compassion that Jesus felt for the other, peace shall certainly flourish. And we shall turn out to be instruments of peace, channels of the peace of the Lord.