When Jesus rose from the dead, his first words to his community were “Peace be with you.” As Catholics, we welcome that first gift of resurrection. Because we follow Jesus, we try to live in peace with everyone, with all of creation, with the God of peace. For Christians, every day then is World Day of Peace.
This year, on September 21, World Peace Day, we join with people around the globe who long for a new world of peace. We remember our special calling to be instruments of Christ’s peace, ambassadors of reconciliation, blessed peacemakers in a world of war. Never was it so important to take this calling seriously.
That means, we try to make peace with ourselves. To make peace with our spouses, children and relatives. To make peace with our neighbors. To make peace with everyone in the church. To make peace with all creatures and all of creation. To make peace with our enemies, even to love them, as Jesus commanded in the Sermon on the Mount.
Some say it’s just too hard to be peaceful, to make peace, but I think this is the beginning of the spiritual life. That’s how the journey starts. Peacemaking is hard. That’s why we have our wonderful sacraments, our Gospel, our saints, our community, one another--to help each other become more and more prayerful, more and more nonviolent, more and more the disarming presence of the peacemaking Christ in our world.
It’s because we so quickly give up the work of peace that today we have some thirty five wars, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, billions suffering in poverty, and global warming threatening us all.
Jesus wants us to live in peace with one another, and with the God of peace. He calls us to bear witness to his gift of peace in our lifetimes. World Peace Day reminds us to put that peace at the center of our prayer, our hearts, our relationships, our work, our lives. It reminds us to do something new for peace--no matter how small or insignificant it may seem in the grand scheme of things.
The saints show us that every one of us can make a difference. We can harbor the peace of Christ in our hearts. We can be a healing presence to our families and neighbors. We can support the grassroots movements for peace and justice, such as Pax Christi USA and the Catholic Worker. We can point the way forward from conflict, division, violence and war to God’s reign of peace and nonviolence.
“Peace I leave you, my peace I give you,” Jesus told his friends the night before he was killed. This World Peace Day, as we join the global call for a new world of peace, we witness to our acceptance of Jesus’ gift of peace and participate in God’s nonviolent transformation of the world. As we do, we are greatly blessed.
