On the Road to Peace

God of Peace,

Thank you for your Christmas gift of peace, for the birth and life of the nonviolent Jesus, and all the blessings of peace, hope and love he offers us all.

Year after year, we continue to reject those blessings and offerings of peace, but you keep giving them to us. Everywhere we look, we see violence, war, greed, guns, drones, killings, injustice, nuclear weapons and catastrophic climate change. Even within us, we cling to violence and the old paradigms of war. It seems we are dead set on rejecting your life-giving invitations to peace.

On the Road to Peace: Before leaving for Afghanistan, Jesuit Fr. John Dear asked several Afghani teenagers how the war has impacted them and their lives.

On the Road to Peace: Why is peacemaking so rare? Why do war-makers abound and profit? Why does peacemaking have such a bad name?