During this Twentieth Century, more human lives have been lost as a result of warfare and political strife than have been taken by famine or any natural disaster. Not only have two world wars inflicted unmeasured misery and suffering upon millions of people, but also atrocities have been committed in the pursuit of political freedom or the protection of human rights throughout the five continents. In Vietnam, war was a fact of life for thirty years; relations between the countries of the Middle East are strained to the limit by violence and acts of war; in Northern Ireland, the deaths and injuries of the last five years, with the many who have been unjustly imprisoned or ill-treated, have ensured that it will be some considerable time before the hostility which has characterised the troubles finally disappears.

In this Holy Year, with its theme of reconciliation, Christians can use the Old Testament to discover the contribution they can make to a world which is desperately searching for peace. The Jewish understanding of peace is characterised by the prophet Isaiah, who looked forward to the Messianic Age as a time when the swords and spears of destruction would be converted into the ploughshares and pruning-hooks with which men could sustain life (Isaiah 2 :4). Such a positive vision of peace inspired the composer of Psalm 72 to pray for the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom, where ‘Justice will flourish, and peace, until the moon fails’. The poor and the weak will be freed from oppression and material well-being will characterise the times as corn ‘is abundant in the land’ and men flourish in the cities ‘like grass on the earth’.