Mal 3:14,23-24 / Lk 1:57-66
We are just days away from the new millennium, and only hours away from the opening of the holy door in St Peter's Basilica in Rome, which will mark the beginning of the great Jubilee Year 2000. As we face these new beginnings, Pope John Paul II has urged upon us his conviction that certain of life's perennial tasks are pressing upon us with new urgency.
The most important of these is the task of reconciliation, with God, with one another, and within our own hearts. Now is the time, as the Old Testament prophet Malachi says, "to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers…" God is calling us to do more than merely stay out of trouble or avoid aggravating one another. He's calling us to be pro-active, to become peace-makers, makers of peace.
For each of us the task will take a different shape, defined by our gifts, our own life histories, our relationships, and where we live. But none of us is exempt from the work of peacemaking.
Now is the time to take an inventory within our hearts and without. Discover what is cutting off one from another and stealing away the proper joy of life, and find a way to put it to rest.
The grace and peace of Christ will be with you as you do his peace making work, and as long as you do that, his joy will fill your heart.
