From killing to cultivation, computers.... YANGON -- In a powerfully worded message to those of his flock and those not, Archbishop Charles Bo delivered an extraordinary homily at the Vigil Mass for the Centenary celebrations of St Mary's Cathedral, 8 December 2011, Yangon.  Framing his thoughts with Readings from Genesis to Revelations, the Archbishop hammered away at contemporary human concerns, some of the 'big' threats to peace and human well-being. His words would have resonated locally as he condemned the 'civil war' between the Kachin Independence Army and Government forces, thanked his President for stopping the Myit Sone Dam Project on the Irrawaddy River, and warned his country to interpret its fledgling democracy with care. They would have resonated equally with international representatives present, and others beyond, as he appealed for illegal logging and deforestation to cease immediately ("Myanmar is a green country, a pleasant nation"), and for people to heed climate change ("Global warming is global warning"). What impressed one, reading through the English version of his homily, and no doubt it was even more carefully woven together in Burmese, was the manner in which he had fashioned his dream of a New Jerusalem by recasting some of the most striking images of Scripture. "They shall beat their swords into plowshares" became killing instruments turned into cultivation, or computers; the crystal waters from Revelations 22 became the beautiful Irrawaddy. And then the reminder that the New Jerusalem is where God lives, and is about the recovery of God's creation, the re-ordering of chaos (tsunamis that see boats on land and cars at sea!). Beginning with the homely image of a small boy crying because he has dismantled his toy car and cannot put it back together again, Archbishop Bo set the scene for the battle between destruction and restoration, where "if the restorer, however, is the creator, then restoration is easily done". This gave him opportunity to see the Immaculate, assumed into heaven, as the image of restored humanity.  The four 'enmities' introduced by human sinfulness (between ourselves, ourselves and the animal world, ourselves and creation, ourselves and God) are met by the four 'restorations' of the omnipotent, good and ever-creating God: peace, the earth giving life, protection against evil, the primacy of Christ. All in all a moving Advent message that would not have been lost on any of its hearers.