Advent Peace

Yesterday was the second Sunday of Advent, and, as promised, I’m posting another round of Advent reflections that I wrote a few years ago. Here’s an excerpt from the one on “peace”:

Peace, as St. Augustine says, is more than simply the absence of war. It is the tranquility of order—when all of the spheres of society function in such a way as to create wonderful music. And this is a radical, prophetic notion: To speak of peace and a tranquil order in a world plagued by restlessness and extreme social disorder is, again, to canoe against the current of reality.

To dare to speak this way is to hope. It presumes that there is an order, and that there can be peace.