This Advent - Christmas’s reflection is very difficult to write. Almost every Tuesday and Thursday, except
in summer months, I have been on Zoom with Israel and Palestine since October 7th a year ago.

I have Jewish friends who are very sad and hurting. Special Palestinian friends have lost family and intimate
friends in the bombings.

I have tried to find hope and peace - good tidings, not easy. Some have said you cannot build a Holy Land
on the Mass Graves of children.

Where is God? Why is Christmas, the birth of Jesus crucial? - The babe, in the rubble!

In rehab here in Toronto, I have buried myself in reading, especially a theological reflection that tries to
bring the world of science and religion into conversation.

Eric Fromm notes: “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problems of human existence.”

Teilhard de Chardin thought that love is the most mysterious and unknown energy in the universe. Love is
rooted in the fundamental nature of reality itself. Love forms every star, atom, leaf, daffodil, bird and human.

Everything that exists is born from love.

Jesus is born from Love, for God is love. We must allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, by Love by a
Christmas baby born in rubble.

Gift yourself this Christmas by looking deeply at a child and know that our hope, our peace our future is
Love.

Paul E. Hansen
Redemptorist