Scottish Catholic Observer

Even as Advent begins, and St Andrew’s Day approaches, there does not seem to be much joy in our hearts. As he prayed for persecuted Christians the world over, condemned the Mali hotel attack and prepared for his visit to Africa, Pope Francis himself admitted that the peaceful Christmas season seemed a ‘charade’ with the world at war.

We can only hope that this Advent and Christmas there is an extra incentive to pack our parishes to capacity, that additional reason being to pray for peace. It has been said that God did not create terror, we did, but praying for the strength to survive and combat terrorism with the ultimate aim of peace, there in lies our Advent mission.

If we cannot prepare a world worthy of the Jesus’ birth, then perhaps we can still prepare our hearts for that moment. As Archbishop Leo Cushley flagged up in this week’s diary, widower Antoine Leiris refused to give his wife Hélène’s killers the ‘gift of hating’ them in spite of her death in the Paris attacks.

Christians are not weak for ‘turning the other cheek,’ forgiving is not forgetting. The world will indeed learn from this spate of terror attacks. It will learn that those who kill are not doing ‘God’s work,’ it will learn the need to protect religious freedom and secure religious tolerance; it will learn the gaping abyss between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ fuels conflict and violence, and that the reactions from all sides seem so predictable and meaningless.

For some, everyday is a struggle, a war. God, who sees everything, sees this struggle.

This Christmas, and everyday, we must rise to the challenges of this life and keep going, keep ‘struggling’ to stay on the right path.

Remember St Andrew on his feast day too. He was martyred by Crucifixion at the city of Patras (Patræ) in Achaea, on the northern coast of the Peloponnese, a victim of early religious persecution and violence.

Most of what we know about Andrew comes from the Gospel of John. John reveals Andrew as one who was constantly bringing people to Jesus. He began by bringing his brother Peter to Jesus.

Andrew and Peter were fishermen until being called permanently by Jesus to be ‘fishers of men.’ (Mt 4:18f).

As Christians in an increasingly secular country and world, we too must cast our nets wide to find fellow believers as we are called to do by our Baptism, the Sacraments and through the new evangelisation.

Christmas marks the arrival of our Saviour, and we need Him now more than ever.