成人快手

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Bishop Sarah Mullally

Good morning,

105 years ago, on Christmas morning the noise of gun fire fell silent along the western front during a spontaneous Christmas truce in the First World War.

Alfred Anderson who died aged 109 in 2014 was the last serving soldier to have heard the silence and he recalled before his death how they had been standing up to their knees in slime and water and all he had heard for two months was the hissing and cracking and whining of bullets in flight and machine gun fire. Then silence fell and people climbed out of the trench singing carols and exchanging gifts 鈥� the gift of peace.

But even so peace isn鈥檛 something that can just materialize all at once out of nothing, just because people get tired of strife and violence. Peace is a process which takes place over time

Mahatma Ghandi wrote,
鈥淧eace is not something that you wish for.
It is something that you make, something that you do,
something that you are, something that you give away.鈥�

So instead of loving what we think is peace, let us love others and love God above all. And instead of hating people we think are war makers, let us hate the appetite and disorder in our own soul that are the causes of war. If we love peace, then let us hate in justice, hate tyranny, hate greed 鈥� but hate these things in ourselves, and not just in others.

Maybe the first step of peace is to find peace within oneself and with God which comes about from knowing his love for us.

My prayer therefore this Christmas is for peace,
For us to think peace
For us to speak peace
For us to act for peace.

Amen

Show less