Maria with her two sons, Oleh (left) and Andrii (right)
“You shall weep no more.”
There is sadly much cause for tears in our broken world. We hear of war and environmental destruction. We hear how people are exploited and oppressed.
Maria recalls how her thirteen-year-old son, Andrii, cried after being forced to leave his home and friends and travel across the country to escape the front line of the war in Ukraine. The journey was difficult and dangerous and even when the family arrived in their new village, the house they were allocated was, as Maria puts it, “a jungle – there was only rubble.”
In circumstances such as those faced by Maria’s family, Isaiah’s vision of a world without grief sounds like an impossible promise. How will this promised future of peace and harmony come about?
Perhaps there is a clue in today’s gospel. Jesus sees that the people need healing and hope. He sends his disciples out to go and serve them. Jesus sends his friends - he sends us – to share his compassion with a wounded world. As Gaudium et Spes, promulgated on this day in 1965, puts it so powerfully:
“The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”
As we wait for the coming of the Lord, let’s hold onto our hope for a world without weeping. And let’s match our hope for a better future with determined efforts to make it so.
Advent prayer
Compassionate God,
when our hearts are heavy with sorrow,
as we see all that is wrong in our world,
sustain our hope and strength.
Make us agents of your healing and bringers of new life.
Amen.
Act
A third of our long-term support to help people out of poverty is made possible through gifts in wills. Thousands of CAFOD supporters have expressed their hope for the future by leaving a gift in their Will to CAFOD. Find out more about how we use these gifts of hope and download a useful guide to making or rewriting your Will.