Act for Peace Second Sunday in Advent – Peace

Servicing the Bald Hills and nearby Communities

Act for Peace Second Sunday in Advent – Peace

Sunday 8th December

Lines from ACT FOR PEACE – Christmas Bowl

The prophet Isaiah told people who had lost their homeland and who had been through enormous suffering that they could live in peace again. His message resonates this Christmas Bowl, as we support Sri Lankan refugees to return home and build peaceful new lives after years of bloody civil war. After years of living in a refugee camp, Vijayakanth and his family returned to Sri Lanka with few belongings. They had to live in an unsafe area, in a run-down rental home that flooded in the rainy season.  But thanks to your compassion, they were supported through their difficulties by Act for Peace’s partners, like OfERR (Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation). OfERR is helping returnees like Vijayakanth’s family to find new livelihoods and start their lives over in a country that has been shattered by war. “I am so thankful to OfERR. They have ensured my family’s safety and security, particularly my children’s. This has paved a new dawn for our children.”

The second week of Advent focusses on peace. 

But the peace of Advent should not be confused with the absence of conflict.  The peace of Advent is a peace that demands justice, and a peace that subverts our notions of power.  John the Baptist echoes the longing of the prophet Isaiah when he remembers ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness’ – and he takes on the persona of Elijah as he seeks to ‘prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight’.  For it was well known that the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8) would return to herald the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah.  Of course, both Isaiah and Elijah had reputations of being forthright in the way they told truth to power, and it is with this in mind that John calls the people of Israel to repentance.  Now, at first glance, we might think phrases such a ‘brood of vipers’ and ‘now the axe is lying at the root of the trees’  – might seem a little out of place when talking about ‘peace’, and yet true peace, much like hope, can only come at a cost.  How are we willing to speak truth to power in order to make a way for peace?  In our families, our work places, our neighbourhoods, our churches, how are our conversations challenging injustice?  What does repentance look like in our lives, that we might demonstrate the way of peace for others?

CHRISTIANS KILLED AT WORSHIP DECEMBER 1ST     

 LaCroix International  03/12/2019

Islamic terrorists carried out yet another attack on a Christian place of worship in the poor, yet gold-rich Burkina Faso, killing 14 persons. Burkina Faso is a small, land locked country in West Africa, (think North of border with Ivory Coast and Ghana). According to a statement from the governorate of Fada N’Gourma region in the east, the Dec. 1 attack took place on a Protestant church in Hantoukoura, on the Niger border.

A dozen heavily armed individuals, on motorcycles, coldly executed the worshipers, including the pastor of the church and children, a security source told AFP.

Bishop Justin Kientega of Ouahigouya said insurgents are “trying to create conflict between religions in a country where Christians and Muslims have always gotten along.” Around two-thirds of the country’s population is Muslim and one-third Christian.

The Dec. 1 massacre is the fifth in a series of attacks on Christian places of worship. On April 28, terrorists entered a Protestant church in Silgadji, Soum province in the north of the country, killing the pastor and others. Two weeks later, on May 12, a priest from Kaya diocese and five others were killed by terrorists in the church of Dablo. On May 13, while the funerals of the priest and the five others were being held, four persons were killed during a Marian procession at the parish of Notre-Dame du Lac in the nearby Diocese of Ouahigouya, in the province of Bam. On May 26, the Catholic Church in Toulfé, Loroum province, was attacked by jihadists, killing four persons. Besides, in mid-March, Father Joël Yougbaré was kidnapped by armed individuals. He has been missing since then.

Earlier, on Feb. 15, Father César Fernandez, a Salesian missionary of Spanish origin, was killed in central Burkina Faso.