After a recent visit to a friend’s house where her brood of four were regularly engaging in arguing, pushing and shoving and fighting over toys, their mom said to me, “I would give anything for some peace!”
The constant conflict among her children, which as parents we know is inevitable to some degree, was robbing her whole family of peace of mind, body and spirit.
What I have come to understand over the years is that peace needs to be cultivated on many levels, but it begins with us having clarity on what we believe about peace.
For us, as children of God, it must be something more than simply the absence of war. It must flow from our relationships – with God, with creation, with others, and with ourselves.
Years ago, during an annual conference for Catholic school teachers and catechists, I gave a workshop entitled, “Is Peace the Piece That is Missing?”
During the presentation I offered a few questions for reflection: How many of you have spoken about peace to your students in the last week; given a homework assignment relating to peace; offered prayers for peace with your class; undertaken some action for peace with your class; have a peace bulletin board; have the word peace visible somewhere in your classroom?
The most provocative question, apparently, was, “How many of you know, without a doubt, where you stand on the issue of peace and the need for war?”
The answers were not encouraging. One teacher walked out. She had lost a brother in the Twin Towers attack and was very angry with me and with what I was sharing with them regarding the way of peace.
Then, two years later, a woman stopped me in the hall at the same annual conference and asked if I had given a workshop on peace there a few years prior. When I acknowledged that I had, she said, “I am the woman who walked out. It took me a long time, more than a year, but I finally got it.” Then she hugged me.
Dorothy Day once said, “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.”
That is what Jesus did.
That is what we are called to do—to bring about a revolution, first in our own hearts, and then in the hearts of others, but for many, that challenge is among the most difficult they will ever face, because it requires a deep assessment of the intentions of their own hearts. Sometimes that’s a frightening thing.
Peace, said Pope Francis, “is a gift and a task.” Speaking about St. Francis of Assisi, whose great love of God, creation and others led him to be a true peacemaker, the Holy Father reminds us, “Each of us is called to follow in his footsteps by becoming a peacemaker, an ‘artisan’ of peace.”
With the help of God, we are up to the task.
Mary Regina Morrell is a Catholic journalist, author, and syndicated columnist who has served the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton, New Jersey, and RENEW International in the areas of catechesis and communication.