“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Jesus offers us peace yet we live in a world is still yearning for peace. Has Jesus failed to keep his promise or is the peace he offers us not what we are yearning for?
What did Jesus mean by his gift of peace? Certainly not the obvious, namely, a world free of conflict. The absence of bloodshed does not mean that true peace has entered the hearts of former enemies. The guns may be silent for now in the Holy Land, but that does not mean peace exists there between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors. Few of us have ever served in combat but we may have embattled relationships in our lives that deny us any sense of peace.
To better understand what Jesus is offering us, we need to contrast our perception of peace with the biblical notion of peace that Jesus has in mind. We think of peace as the absence of conflict but the peace that Jesus speaks of is “shalom,” a Hebrew word that is not easy to translate. Imagine Jesus saying to us, “Shalom I leave with you; my shalom I give to you. May you be in harmony, not only with nature, but with yourself, with others, and with God.”
True peace comes when we carry out our responsibilities and obligations to others, which is why Jesus asserts that anyone who loves him will keep his word. True peace comes from loving God and knowing that God loves us. Convinced of that, we then order our lives around God’s will instead of ours and use God’s wisdom, provided by the Holy Spirit, as the ultimate source for making our daily decisions.
Keep in mind that Jesus is sharing this prayer with his apostles hours before Judas betrays him. He knows the end is near and yet he is at peace with himself and what is about to happen. Far from being fearful or distressed, Jesus is in harmony with the world around him. He will do what few of us dare to do; he surrenders himself totally to God.
Last Sunday, Pope Francis canonized some saints. Among them was Charles de Foucauld, a hermit and priest who was assassinated on December 1, 1916 in southern Algeria. He is best remembered for a prayer he wrote that begins, “Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all….into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart for I love you Lord…”
Imagine how different our world would be if this was our conscious prayer. Would sin have a chance to invade our lives? Could racism, prejudice, malice, or bigotry fester in our hearts if indeed we commended our souls to the Lord?
Years ago I read a story that reminds me that any search for peace begins within us. A knight once traveled a long distance to see a wise man and upon arriving, he asked, “Sir, tell me, what are heaven and hell really like?”
Tell me about yourself first,” the sage replied. The knight proudly replied, “I am an officer of the Emperor’s elite personal guard.” “Nonsense!” the wise man retorted, “What kind of emperor would have you around him? To me you appear just like a fool!” The knight, insulted by that comment, reached for his sword. “Oh, ho!” laughed the sage, “So you have a long sword. I suppose it’s much too dull to cut off my head.”
The knight could not contain himself any longer. He angrily drew his sword and threatened the wise man, who calmly replied, “Now you know half the answer. You are opening the gates of hell.” The officer hesitated, lowered his sword, and bowed in respect to the sage. “Now you know the other half,” the wise man said. “You have opened the gates of heaven.”
I would venture to say that we all have a good idea how to open the gates to both heaven and hell. Sooner or later vanity will give us a good inkling of what hell is like. If we focus largely on ourselves, then the odds are that, like the knight, we haven’t much peace within us. On the other hand, reaching out to others with love gives us a taste of the peace Jesus has in mind for his followers. If love is what motivates us through the day, then we have a taste of heaven.
Love motivates me to speak out against evil at the risk of offending some listeners, just as Jesus did at times.
Jesus told his apostles he was going away but that didn’t mean God would be absent from their lives. He promised to send the Holy Spirit to instruct them in everything. This he has done and the Church has consequently grown through the years since then but are we listening? When in our pride, fear, or eagerness to control others, we refuse to open ourselves to hearing God’s will, we forfeit his gift of peace.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once commented, “Nice people must see themselves as nasty people before they can find peace.” God’s gift of peace comes when we open our hearts to God, as St. Charles de Foucauld did and be willing to listen to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit who could very well challenge us to let go of those attitudes that hinder us from finding the inner peace we are yearning for.