Jesus declares, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ The English wording can sound rather sentimental. ‘Blessed’ translates the Greek makarios, which in turn translates the Aramaic ashray (from the verb yashar), which Jesus would have used. Elias Chacour the Palestinian Melkite Archbishop of Galilee whose mother tongue is Aramaic, says the word means ‘to set yourself up on the right way for [...]

Someone asked me what faith was. And this was my reply to his question. Faith is not what we believe. Thats belief. Rather faith is the willingness to take a risk to act on what we say we believe. Thats faith. So if communities become increasingly risk averse there is no way they can be communities of [...]