Breaking into Peace

One of the last things Jesus gave to His disciples before glorifying God the Father on a cross was peace. " Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid" (John 14:27). Almost two thousand years has passed since then and majority of world's population has heard the Good News of Jesus, but the world still lacks peace. In fact, the world seeks peace with ardent desire everyday but does not find it. Even when there are no wars, the world is troubled and tensed with all kinds of conflicts. They say there is no peace in the world, therefore there is no peace in our societies, thus there is no peace in our families, and subsequently there is no peace within us. Then the question is whatever happened to that peace that Jesus left for us? 

Is it possible that we are looking for peace in the wrong place? Jesus left His peace here on earth because the world had ran out of peace! Pride, envy, anger, hatred and injustice had long disturbed the balance of the universe, exhausting the peace that God has put in place at the time of Creation. Fear and insecurity took control of human lives when we allowed our hearts to be taken over by sins. It is from the human heart that all the violence emerges as a consequence of sins committed against God and humanity. We seek peace as if it is situated outside of ourselves. We seek peace as if it is the responsibility of others around us to find it for us - the same others whom we hate, to whom we are mean and against whom we are selfish. There is no peace in this world, if anything there are intervals of quiet life. We often get fooled and accept this quiet life as the peace we seek. Unfortunately, though, peace is not simply the lack of unrest and violence. When the world is at peace, it shouldn't be standing still, it should be moving with joy.

Perhaps we got it all wrong when we blame the lack of peace around us as the reason for lack of peace in our hearts. Perhaps it is the other way around - there is no peace in the world because there is no peace in our hearts. There is no peace in our hearts because we have allowed evil to be leading force of our lives. And evil always find room when and where there is unwanted pride. The pride that dwells in us has turned ourselves into selfish and unkind beings, and it taught us to look at the world with hatred and contempt. But as Blessed John Paul II points out, "It is also from the human heart, from its great capacity to love, from its generosity in being willing to undergo sacrifice, that there can arise - made fruitful by Christ's grace - feelings of fraternity and works of service to men who 'like a stream of peace' (Isaiah 66:12) work together for the construction of a more just world, in which peace brings with it the badge of citizenship and impregnates all structures of society". So the peace that Jesus left for us also lies within our hearts, right there besides all the unwanted pride that encourages us to be selfish, thus violent. 

The pride may have caused the peace to remain dormant, but it is never powerful enough to destroy the peace. Pride may have opened a window towards hatred, but it never closed the door on our ability to love, thus being peaceful. To experience the peace of Jesus Christ in our hearts, we need to feel the presence of Jesus Christ in our hearts. We feel His presence when our hearts are broken with repentance; there is no peace without contrition. When we break our pride filled heart to surrender to the will of God, when we break our selfish mind to the love of Christ, when we break our unforgiving soul to the sanctifying graces of the Holy Spirit, we find peace - within us. With a peaceful heart, we can then go out into our families, into our societies and into the world, spreading the peace of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, thus moving it with joy in the Holy Spirit. 

PEACE BE WITH YOU.