Week V • Saturday
Papua New Guinea
Week V • Saturday
Voices from the Landscape
Sadly, violence has become common across those parts of Papua New Guinea where SSF has been for nearly 65 years. On each of my regular visits to Haruro, I hear stories of drunken youths, arguments with bush knives or rifles, vengeance killings, houses being burnt down, in
women being raped, or of muggings in the crowded streets of Popondetta town. It’s not safe to venture beyond the friary without an escort.
Conrad, one of our Third Order brothers experienced a tragic event in his own village of Papoga in mid-2025. Hearing a disturbance outside at night his brother went outdoors to talk to the drunken youths responsible. They slashed across his neck with a bush knife, killing him on the spot. Members of Conrad’s clan then went to the family of one of the youths and killed the youth’s father. Two innocent lives taken.
First and Third Order SSF, along with Melanesian Brotherhood and Sisters of the Visitation, had already formed a Peace and Justice Mission in response to the violence round Kokoda Valley, Oro Bay and Popondetta area.
Conrad, who is also a local church leader, has taken the courageous step of calling for an end to such violence. I was privileged to be on a visit to his village with others of the Peace and Justice Mission.
Our mission is mainly to “preach peace”. We’re not experts. But in a world where police are too few and insufficiently trained, where government officials struggle with insufficient funding, and politicians are often more concerned for personal gain rather than humble service, then it’s church groups who at least are trusted and given access. Police and judiciary, such as they are, can wield hard power, but we have the soft power to convert hearts and bring about renewed lives.
wonderings
- I wonder what it feels like for Conrad to stand before his own village, carrying grief in one hand and courage in the other.
- I wonder how peace sounds in Oceania—whether like the hush of wind in the palms, the murmur of the sea on coral, or the quiet voice of one person saying, Enough.
- I wonder what it means for me, in my context, to “preach peace” not as expertise but as humility, presence, and solidarity.
- I wonder how God grieves over cycles of payback, and how God rejoices over even the smallest act that breaks the chain.
Reflection
Francis preached peace and prayed for it. The greeting he taught the friars, “May the Lord give you peace”, was a novelty. A humble prayer, rather than an authoritative declaration of peace, and one which was rooted in the friars’ way of living, “simply and subject to all.” Later some friars were to move into expert high-level roles in diplomatic peace missions, but in the time of Francis they simply preachedpeace, prayed for it and lived it. For example, Francis and the wolf. He preached peace, called for conversion, and offered a way of life to bring peace to both wolf and the people of Gubbio.
Well, of course I think we need to increase our skills in this area. We could run programmes, have training sessions, work with NGOs, make strategic alliances with others. And so on. And perhaps we will do some of this. The organiser in me gets itchy feet!
But to preach peace is a mighty powerful thing, at least if we keep our feet grounded in humility and our vision Godwards.
Authentic preaching needs to look to the situation as much as to scripture. Preaching to the villagers to exhort them to live in peace is necessary, but we also need to preach to the “powers”—to politicians and officials. All of us are called to penance, and also to use whatever God-given gifts we have to work for peace. We need to persuade those with authority to improve access to health care, education, roads, employment, housing and other drivers of violence. These are the injustices which have always been the topics of preachers and prophets.
Preaching to address these deep-seated problems cannot ignore the politics behind those problems. The word of God, such as we might humbly attempt to proclaim, is not just to comfort but also to disturb, and lead to action.
Br. Christopher John,
minister general of Franciscans
prayer
God of the great Pacific waters,
breathe your peace over Papua New Guinea.Hold Conrad’s village in your mercy,
and strengthen all who dare
to speak against violence.
Make our hearts humble, our words truthful, and our lives signs of another way.
May your peace flow like a tide
through every valley, healing wounds
and renewing hope.
bible reading
John 12:44–50 :
Light That Reconciles the World
This passage stands as a kind of epilogue to Jesus’ public ministry—his final cry before the silence of the upper room. It gathers the whole Gospel into one luminous declaration: to see him is to see the Father; to hear him is to hear the Word of life; to walk with him is to walk in the light.
It is as though the whole story of Jesus—from Bethlehem’s stable to the road toward the cross—comes to rest in this last outpouring of divine longing: that no one should remain in darkness, that all should be reconciled in the light of love.
When Jesus cries out, “I have come as light into the world,” he is not announcing dominance but invitation—a light that seeks not to expose for shame, but to reveal for healing. His voice carries the ache of mercy, summoning creation out of its shadows. “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” Here, light is not a spotlight of condemnation but the dawn of reconciliation—a radiance that restores what was broken and gathers what was scattered.
In the islands of Oceania, light and water are never far apart. Morning light breaks over the ocean as a promise of renewal—shimmering across vast distances, linking scattered lands into one horizon. Theologians such as Sione Havea and Upolu Luma Vaai speak of this light as a metaphor for va—the sacred relational space that holds people, creation, and God in harmony. When the va is wounded by greed, violence, or neglect, reconciliation is not a legal act but a reweaving of light between us—the tender work of restoring right relationship.
Across the waters in Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori wisdom echoes this same vision. Whakapapa—the deep genealogy that binds all beings—reminds us that we exist only in relationship: with our ancestors, the land, and each other. To reconcile is therefore to enter the practice of whakawhanaungatanga—the restoration of kinship, the remembering of belonging that has been forgotten. In the light of Christ, this remembering becomes holy work. The Gospel’s light does not erase difference; it reveals our shared horizon of grace.
Francis of Assisi lived this truth with startling simplicity. He stepped out of privilege into kinship, calling even the sun and moon, the wind and water, his brothers and sisters. His penance was not punishment but purification—the letting go of every false brightness so that the true light might shine through him. In his joy and poverty, Francis became a mirror of that same reconciling light that shone from the face of Christ.
Today, that light still seeks to cross the distances we have made—between nations and neighbours, rich and poor, human and creation. To walk in the light of Christ is to join the work of healing the va, renewing the whakapapa, and making peace with one another and the earth. It is to let our lives become small lamps in the great dawn of reconciliation.
The light of Christ does not blind; it illumines.
It is the glow on the ocean at dawn,
the flame rekindled in a reconciled heart,
the radiance of faces turned once more toward each other.
The light of Christ is the light of belonging—
restoring memory, rekindling kinship,
and revealing the sacred web that holds us all.
reflective action
Sit with your hands open—a gesture common in many Pacific rituals of welcome. Imagine you are holding both the pain and the beauty of Papua New Guinea:
Then slowly close your hands. Hold them gently against your heart.
Pray—not with words but with longing—that your life may become a place where cycles of vengeance are interrupted, where someone else may feel safe, heard, or healed because of you.
journalling prompt
Write about a moment when you witnessed conflict, large or small, and felt powerless.
Then reflect on where “soft power” might have been present beneath the surface.
What gifts, attitudes, or actions could you offer in your own context that embody the Franciscan greeting, “May the Lord give you peace”?
