Roman Catholic Parish of Ogle Street

“Unarmed and Disarming”

At the beginning of 2026, Pope Leo XIV invites us to disarm our hearts, minds and lives so as to welcome the lasting transformation that the “unarmed and disarming” peace of Christ brings to the world.

What is the arsenal of bitterness, hatred, judgements, resentments or prejudices, that God may be calling me to put down this year?

The logic of aggression, now on the rise in our world, is based on fear and mistrust and thrives where there is discouragement and a desire to dominate others. It thrives wherever peace is not lived, promoted and protected.

But for a Christian to lose peace is to lose Christ. Unarmed on the cross, Christ disarmed his enemies by loving them to the extent of dying for them. There he put to death the hostility that made us enemies of God and of each other and became Our Peace (See Ephesians 2:13-18). This unmerited offering of merciful love to the enemy is to be welcomed and transmitted. To forget this is not to be realistic but to be “blind to the beauty of others and forgetful of God’s grace, which is always at work in human hearts, even though wounded by sin”.¹

The birth of Christ reminds us of the only kind of peace that can save us.

‘God presents himself to us “unarmed and disarming,” as naked and defenceless as a newborn in a cradle. He does this to teach us that the world is not saved by sharpening swords, nor by judging, oppressing or eliminating our brothers and sisters [but] by tirelessly striving to understand, forgive, liberate and welcome everyone, without calculation and without fear’. ²

At Bethlehem we see ‘the meeting of two immense, “unarmed” realities: that of God, who renounces every privilege of his divinity to be born in the flesh, and that of a human person who, trustingly and fully, embraces God’s will. In a perfect act of love, she offers him the greatest power she possesses: her freedom’. ³

May we freely renounce our desire to control others, our fear and our mistrust in order to welcome the lasting transformation that the “unarmed and disarming” peace of Christ brings to the world.