The beginning of Advent always comes as a bit of a shock in this increasingly busy world we live in. Just as everything seems to get busier in the countdown to Christmas, the Church asks us to slow down, to reflect, to prepare.

This year, as the world reels from recent terror attacks, we have more cause than usual to engage in some serious Advent reflection and to earnestly await the arrival of the Prince of Peace.

I suspect none of us knows how this type of terrorism should or could be stopped. There are too many complex cultural, religious, social and political factors at play for there to be an easy answer.

Perhaps all we can do in this Advent season is to reflect on our own lives. To look into our own hearts and truthfully say whether we have allowed the Prince of Peace to take hold in our own lives, our own relationships.

As Divine Word Missionaries, we are committed to living and ministering interculturally, and our experience in this tells us that this is one way to really achieve peace in local communities. Is it enough to overcome fundamentalist terrorism? Perhaps not. But it might just be one place to start, for we have seen, and continue to see, intercultural living break down barriers and forge positive relationships.

Terrorism seeks to paralyse us with fear. Jesus tells us to be not afraid.
Advent reminds us to watch and to wait. It reminds us that Jesus was born into an equally turbulent world, where his parents had to take him and flee persecution in the days after his birth. It reminds us that mankind has always been in need of true peace and we remain so today.

But if Advent reminds us of anything, it must remind us of Hope.

Christ came to walk among us, here on this earth, with all its troubles and trevails. He took on the full weight of all the suffering of the world and in rising again, he broke through death and gave us the promise of eternal life.

Perhaps, understandably, such reflections would do little to help the families of those people killed in the recent Paris attacks, and our heart goes out to them. But it seems to me that this Advent, as we await the joy of the Christmas season, we must reflect on the hope that we have. And we must realise that hope and peace cannot take hold in the world until they take hold in each of us.

Yours in the Word,

Fr Henry Adler SVD

Provincial