"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-26) .
Some consider this the "Old Testament Lord's Prayer", to express the priests' desire for the Lord to grant favors to His people and among them peace, "Shalom". As one Psalm says: "Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss"; This is our wish for the new year.
We currently live in a world plagued by conflicts and people yearn to live in peace, but the word "Shalom" means much more than the absence of conflict and violence. It expresses beautiful things as well. Fullness and harmony of all aspects of life and human relationships.
Mary as our mother because mother of the Lord can help us achieve this "peace/shalom", because she is "full of grace", inexhaustible grace, and the church turns to her today.
EDSA is a major thoroughfare in Manila. At a certain point on the road there is a huge statue entitled "Queen of Peace". It was erected there four years after the popular revolution of 1985 when millions of people flocked to that place in front of the tanks, to protest the military law. Thousands of rosaries and prayer cards were hung on armored vehicles and donated to soldiers. Peaceful revolution! It was considered one of a kind and "miraculous" as if... the Lord wished everyone, gathered in that place, well and allowed Mary to pour out her grace both on the people and on the soldiers.
Today I imagine Mary in Nazareth absorbed, looking worriedly at the situation in her country and allowing herself to be carried away by a sense of compassion towards the people who are victims and made helpless in the face of a destructive technology used without mercy.
In Bethlehem, however, it was Shalom that Mary meditated in front of the shepherds, boys and girls like the three of Fatima, surrounded by the song "Peace to them, boys and girls of good will whom God loves". It reminds us of the meaning of Christmas. The desire of the Savior to redeem people from their daily difficulties, from night shifts to protect the little they have. Life must be beautiful, lived, first.
Today, the first day of the year, we receive "Shalom" through Mary and through her we ask the lord to show his face to the people who, despite being ordinary like the shepherds, want the good of everyone. Those of good will dragged into armed conflicts. Those marginalized in our home. Our neighbors. To the faithful gathered in the Church to receive the priest's blessing.
But we also ask the Lord to show his face also to those who finance the arms market, to the technicians who design them and to the owners of the factories who build them. They do it without moral and ethical principles. They used drones, one toys, to drop bombs. May his face be able to carve their hearts of stone and push them to produce instead technologies that do no harm, do not cause suffering, that save. Non-lethal ethical technology. To face, without fear, a world that is moving towards a great transformation.
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