Monsignor Enrique Díaz Díaz shares with Exaudi readers his reflection on the Gospel of this Sunday, November 30, 2025, entitled:  “They will beat their swords into plowshares.”

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Isaiah 2:1-5: “They will beat their swords into plowshares   and their spears into pruning hooks”

Psalm 121:  “Let us go with joy to meet the Lord”

Romans 13:11-14:  “It is time for you to wake up, because our salvation is near”

Matthew 24:37-44:  “Be watchful and ready”

“We live in difficult times,” the old man tells me wistfully. He has seen many battles and is not easily frightened by any setback. “The sad thing now is that no one seems to notice. Violence has become entrenched in our communities. Every day we wake up or go to sleep to news of new murders, robberies, extortions, disappearances, and there are many abandoned homes, sad and grieving. But what strikes me most is that many people carry on as if nothing is happening, as long as it doesn’t happen to them. We have become accustomed to violence, as long as it doesn’t affect us.” His words seem very close to the Gospel:  “People were eating and drinking and marrying, until the day Noah entered the ark.”  Our country is wounded and deeply hurt. We all recognize it, we all talk about it, but we continue with the same way of life!

The first Sunday of Advent is a powerful cry that seeks to awaken us and draw our attention to what we are doing to life, to the earth, and to humanity. Human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, have become nature’s primary predator and humanity’s worst enemy. Isaiah, contemplating the sad state we have reached, refuses to believe that this is humanity’s final destiny and launches his message of hope, praying and dreaming that  “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”  That is to say, that humanity’s policies and ambitions will change radically. The sword and the spear have become symbols of aggression and violence, of selfish destruction and the tyrannical imposition to which each person aspires. Humanity has disfigured its own face, created in the “image of God,” and far from being creative, dynamic, and fraternal, has become its primary destroyer. Based on economic growth and policies that favor a few corporations and states, it demands an endless consumption of resources, a consumption that has led to climate disaster and a dangerous social situation. Will we be able to turn swords into plowshares? Can we rediscover the true image and spirituality of humankind? We are called to sow in the deepest sense of the word: to give life, to surrender ourselves, and to serve, so that we may bear fruit.

Institutionalized violence against nature and against our fellow human beings, far from being our true calling, plunges humanity into a spiral of self-destruction and annihilation. It is urgent to recover humanity’s true vocation. We will have to go to the roots of the person to rebuild them anew, to find harmony. No one agrees with the situation we are experiencing, yet we continue as if asleep, undermined by sin, cowardice, and mediocrity. Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, insists that we take into account the times in which we live. Indifference, apathy, and complacency will not pull us out of the serious problems we are facing. He calls us to live  “honestly”  and denounces the excesses that corrode the heart: gluttony, drunkenness, lust, debauchery, strife, and envy. Humanity has become accustomed to living without deprivation, touched and disfigured by all its ambitions. Humanity, like the earth, is wounded. It is a time for reflection and a rediscovery of humanity’s true meaning. Paul urges us to consider the times in which we live and invites us to contemplate Jesus, to clothe ourselves in his sentiments, and thus transform our world. In Christ, we find the true model of happiness, creation, and the meaning of history.

We urgently need to heed the words of Isaiah with hope, not only to transform swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, but also to abandon the entire arms race, all structures of hatred, and a world of vengeance. All the ambition for power that threatens to destroy us. The cost of weapons could easily feed the hunger of every nation. A more responsible, compassionate, and humane care for nature would allow us to enjoy our shared home for longer. Let us not be afraid, let us be courageous, and let us responsibly confront a situation that could lead to even worse consequences. To exchange swords and spears is to profoundly change from an aggressive attitude to a creative, dynamic, and fraternal one.

Advent, while a time for denunciation, is also a time of hope and optimism. The task of the true disciple is to live in hope and awaken hope in others. We are almost at the end of the Jubilee Year of Hope, and it is necessary to strengthen and solidify our attitudes and commitments to build a new world. “Be watchful and ready,” are the words of Jesus to his disciples. And he compares his generation to the passivity and indifference of the generation that suffered the Flood. No one believed it, no one expected it, even though Noah constantly foretold it. Now we are in the same situation. Many alarm bells are ringing in our communities: loss of values, destruction of the family, contempt for life, destruction of nature. Let us return to the teachings of Jesus and light candles and lights of hope. This hope is not based on calculations, but rather springs from the lifestyle of those who face reality, rooted and built up in Christ.

Advent brings us many reflections and demands many answers. Am I willing to awaken and open my eyes to examine my reality? What does it mean for me to transform swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks? What real signs of hope am I giving?

Good Father, who renews the heart of humankind just as you renew nature, grant that during this Advent season we may adopt a more creative, responsible, and compassionate attitude toward nature and toward our brothers and sisters, so that we may prepare for the coming of your Son Jesus. Amen