Facing into 2003 is something which many of us do with a degree of trepidation.

Somehow, the world stage seems a very unsettled place, and we dread what the next ‘act’ might disclose. Old scores, which have lain buried under the surface, have come to centre-stage again.

Day-by-day, we see new atrocities carried out in Palestine and Israel, inspired by deadly hatred. We hear of North Korea engaging again in the production of nuclear weapons, and major alarm bells ring for those of us who lived through the Korean War. And, of course, the results of 9/11 are still very much with us, as armies, including our own, gather around Iraq, foreshadowing a possibly appalling war against Saddam Hussein.

In the light of all that, our relatively ‘small’ problems in Northern Ireland should not seem intractable. The truth is, under God, they can and must be solved by all of us, together. They come, of course, from the same roots as the other, bigger ‘world’ problems - fear, mistrust, power-grabbing, money-making (you believe it!), twisted identity and the buzz which violence appears to give to people.

Here, hopefully at the other end of our years of conflict, we still live with and inherit the results of division. We have become a much more violent society, with violent attacks and murders every day of the week, within families and communities as well as between them. Our level of trust has plummeted even in the past year.

We all know that we dare not go back to the past, but find it hard to create a new future. Now the time is coming for us, in so-called ‘Christian’ Ulster, to rally together in a focussed way and to spell out what the way of the Prince of Peace might actually and concretely mean for two divided Christian communities. Then, and only then, we will be an example to a world which is dangerously fragmented and which might well tear itself apart.

May God grant that all of us may open our lives to him to be channels of his peace, and give us the courage to pray the prayer which often seems unanswerable –‘Give peace in our time, O Lord’.

A very happy and peaceful New Year.