The following reflection by Ched Myers, ecumenical activist theologian and writer, originally appeared in our 1999 Advent-Christmas reflection booklet.

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The reading from the Hebrew Bible today is the famous prophetic commission that heralds “good news to the oppressed” and proclaims “the year of God’s favor”. Of all the possibilities in his scriptures, it is this text that Jesus of Nazareth chose to define and inaugurate his mission, according to Luke’s Gospel (Lk. 4:18-19). While its meaning has often been spiritualized by our churches, Isaiah (and Jesus) clearly understood the “acceptable year” in terms of the ancient vision of Jubilee (Leviticus 25).

The Jubilee was a communal discipline designed to teach the people about their dependence upon the land and upon the “divine economy of grace”. Because the Earth belongs to God and its fruits are “free”, the people should justly distribute those fruits instead of seeking to own and hoard them. The “sabbath’s sabbath” (7 x 7 years) was intended as Israel’s hedge against the inevitable tendency of human societies to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of the few. In agrarian societies such as biblical Israel (or some parts of the world today), the cycle of poverty began when a family had to sell off its land in order to service a debt, and it reached its conclusion when landless peasants could only sell their labor, becoming bond-slaves. The Jubilee aimed to dismantle such inequality...

The recent encyclical by Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, offers a critical step toward the illumination of nonviolence and a just peace moral framework.

Reflecting on conflict and fear, Francis clearly names war itself, not merely terrorist attacks, as an "affront to human dignity," which is the central, orienting theme of Catholic social teaching. This opens a door for Catholics to more clearly recognize that nonviolence is a positive reverence for human dignity and life, as well as what acting consistently with human dignity looks like in practice.

Turning our attention to dialogue and friendship as critical nonviolent ways of being, he highlights the importance of creating "processes of encounter … that build a people that can accept differences," rather than "the violence of those who despise differences." These processes of encounters manifest the first category of a just peace moral framework, namely, developing the virtues and skills to engage conflict constructively.

In contrast, "every act of violence committed against a human being is a wound; every violent death diminishes us as people. … Violence leads to more violence. … We must break this cycle which seems inescapable" (227). This recognition of how every act of violence cultivates a cycle of harm and violence illuminates the second category of a just peace moral framework, namely, breaking cycles of destructive conflict and violence...

Click here to read the rest of this article in NCR.

FROM PAX CHRISTI METRO NEW YORK: On Saturday, December 12th at 10:30am ET, Pax Christi Metro New York is hosting “Moving Beyond Victimization and Privilege: The Anti-Racism Challenge” with Pax Christi USA Ambassadors of Peace Tom Cordaro and Cathy Crayton. More information and how to register can be found by clicking here. 

FROM PAX CHRISTI USA: Join Pax Christi USA for a short 30 minute Advent prayer service on Monday, December 14th (and again on the 21st) at 8:30pm ET. We will be joined by the authors of the Advent booklet to reflect and share in community with one another. Click here for more information and to register.