Lamb of God – Grant us Peace!
The world is a turbulent place. Just watching the news will make you so restless. People today live very busy and stressful lives and have a very little time to pause for a minute in order to obtain some internal peace, which is so necessary for spiritual and physical well-being.
“Peace be with you” is the greeting with which Jesus greets his disciples when He comes and stands among them on first Easter Sunday evening. He uses this identical greeting when He comes to them again eight days later. He addresses his closest disciples by telling them not to let their hearts be troubled:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn. 16:33)
St Francis of Assisi encourages us to become instruments of peace. St. Gregory of Nyssa calls a peacemaker a man who brings peace to another. He also indicates that one cannot give another what one does not possess oneself. “Nemo dat quod non habet” (you can’t give what you don’t have).
As your new chaplain I would like to encourage you to acquire the blessings of peace and then share it with those who need it. While unrest might be growing, we are always reminded about our calling to be peacemakers. In becoming peacemakers, we must tend to our own hearts, pulling out the weeds of the hatred and planting the flowers of virtues.
Saint Seraphim Sarov famously once told his followers: “Acquire a peaceful spirit, and then thousands around you will follow.”
Maybe we cannot change the situation directly, but we can make a change around us by our example and faith. Peace of Christ therefore is not just peace as the world understands it and what we are waiting for. Certainly, it will bring us serenity, mental calm, and a steady tranquility, but it is something vastly greater than all that.
Just as Jesus came to the disciples on that first Easter Sunday evening while they were hiding in fear behind closed doors, so too He comes to us when we open out hearts to Him bringing us his peace and enabling us in becoming peacemakers to others during these turbulent and difficult times. Fr. Andrija