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Happy New Year to you all!

I am sure many of you have a wish or resolution for the new year. As I think of what we can cultivate more as a community, what came to my mind was peace. The whole world is loaded with power-seeking battles, which often involves violence, and pushes the vulnerable into danger and suffering. Like a toxic element spread through the system affecting the healthy body, what we see and hear these days certainly affect us knowingly or unknowingly.

Not just that, while standing in the midst of all these divisions and polarizations, the weakening of local communities, economic anxieties, environmental crisis, it is easy to feel so helpless and powerless. Some people take all these heaviness into their hearts feeling low, others take them out on somewhere spreading anger and cynicism.

Then what can we do? As many wise voices throughout the ages remind us, the change comes from within not from outside, begins with changes of our hearts spreading to outside world. On that note, I want us to find a way to be rooted in peace, that comes from the awareness of God’s loving presence within us. My prayer is that we will all peace bearer and spread the seed of hope through our words and deeds.

Instead of battling against the world to fix the problems, I want us to be a messenger of Good News. To bear the fruit and spread the seeds of Good News, we must be deeply rooted in Christ who opened the way forward. We need to see that Christ is not waiting at the end of the road but he is here with us to walk the path every step from the beginning.

It all begins simply with prayer. Let us bring our attention to God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit who is present in our breathing, in our movement, in our thoughts, and in our hearts. Just as every child is unique in communicating with their parents, we all are different in what way we converse to God. I hope we will find the most suitable way to pray.

Furthermore, as we live with the presence of God, each one of us will be a reminder to each other of God’s presence. Then together as a community, we will be the reminder to the world that there is hope, there is calling, there is vision coming from God who is with us.

In that way, we bring peace to the world, the peace the world cannot give.

Fr. James