President's Christmas Message
To begin my annual letter in this holy season, I turn to God’s vision for us spoken through the prophet Jeremiah around the sixth century B.C.E. "The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah." The Lord promised that the land of Judah and its city, Jerusalem, would be preserved as a place of peace so long as its people were faithful in their relationship with God. But if they strayed, strife and division would continue and Judah would be destroyed by the Assyrians. Writing about the same time was the prophet Isaiah, who envisioned people of all nationalities streaming to the holy mountain of Jerusalem and there finding a community at peace. Even today Jews, Christians, and Muslims claim Jerusalem as the holiest of cities. Yet factions and hatreds pervade life there as they do throughout the Middle East and many other troubled places in the world. There and elsewhere, religions conflict too often, intensified by cultural, historical, political, and economic differences.
To transform communities and the world, I believe we should begin by looking into our hearts and discovering our common humanity with all others walking the face of the earth, together with finding the image of God in each person who has been created. Such discovery inspires the desire to love and be loved, and builds relationships of harmony among all peoples and nations, which is a measure of our harmony with God. Understanding in the human heart is the path to peace. The quest for peace is universal, whether the word for it be shalom, paz, kapayapaan, hetep, pace, mir, shanti, santiphap, amani, sidi - the list could go on. In the movie "Babel," a story about understanding the human heart, interconnected stories of four families in four different countries, cultures, ethnicities, religions, and economic classes reveal how people (generally) want to do good. But when bad things unexpectedly happen, misunderstandings due to cultural, physical, and religious differences generate fears of the unknown and result in surprising and remarkable behaviors. "Babel" questions right and wrong, winning and losing, good and evil, and the varieties of wealth and poverty in this world at this time in history.
The movie helped me again perceive that the human heart desires peace even in the midst of troubling times. An orientation toward peace would transform the world: love would prevail over hate, harmony over war, hope over despair, and justice over self-interest. With an orientation toward peace, the visions of Jeremiah and Isaiah and the Word of God make sense. The stranger—the person who comes from a different background or language—will become neighbor when we realize all are precious in the eyes of God. May we all use this holy season as a time to discover again the goodness deep down in human hearts, binding our lives and freedom to each other. When peace is personal, it will more readily become a reality for families, communities, and our world. God bless you. Paul Locatelli, S.J. |
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