December 2023: Editorial

Advent – A Time to Reflect     

As we prepare during Advent to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace and watching the growing excitement in children’s eyes it is difficult not to reflect upon the tsunami of tears that have been shed this year because of war and conflict. In many cases tears for the slaughter of innocent children in the land of Herod but beyond even his fevered imagination. It was a Jewish comedian who once paraphrased the prophet Isaiah when he expressed his skepticism that human beings could ever live in peace together when he wrote, ‘They shall turn their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks – and then they will stab you with their ploughshares.’ Yet the desire for a real and lasting peace between us as a human family however elusive remains a constant goal for most human hearts.

 Pope Paul VI warned that ‘ wars begin in the human heart’ and peace can only be achieved when hearts of stone have been turned to hearts of flesh. The coming of the Prince of Peace offers us another opportunity to reflect on ways that we can become blessed peacemakers. As we contemplate and reflect upon the wonder of God’s love which chose to dwell with us despite our lemming like habits as a species of jumping over whatever cliff or precipice is available we can rededicate ourselves to making peace, to being part of the solution and not the problem. Peace may seem to be an impossible dream but as followers of the Prince of Peace we are obliged to plough on confident in our Emmanuel, that God is with us despite the setbacks.

‘We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.’

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus.

Paul Clayton-Lea 

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