An
Inheritance of Peace
A man facing death sets his affairs in order. He makes arrangements so
that his heirs will be well provided for upon his death. This is what our Lord
does at the Last Supper. Making the final preparations before His Crucifixion,
He leaves an inheritance to the Apostles and through them to the entire Church.
Thus He gives us the Eucharist, the new commandment of love (the mandatum), the priesthood, etc.
We hear of one such gift in today’s Gospel: Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
This is part of His last will and testament, of our inheritance. Of course,
“peace” is one of those words that we often use and rarely understand. What He
intends here is not geopolitical peace but spiritual. Still, the classic
definition used in political thought also applies: peace is the tranquility of order.
Sin
has disturbed our souls, set them out of order. Our interior disquiet, in
turn, causes disturbances outside of us – in the family, society, and the world
as a whole. Christ’s grace within us frees our souls from the disorder of sin.
He gives us an interior tranquility of order by configuring us to Himself. Once
at peace interiorly, we can then (and only then) be a cause of peace for others.
Interestingly, our Our Lord says little about peace – not even a full verse.
Still, the context of His words indicates its importance, and His precise
phrasing reveals its distinctive nature.
Peace I leave with you. . . .His peace is left to us. It is something received, not seized
or manufactured. Like Christ Himself, His peace is “begotten not made.” It is
the fruit of His grace within us, and not something we attain by our own
cleverness or dint of effort. We can neither think our way to this peace nor
will it for ourselves. Ours is to respond to and cooperate with His grace of
peace, not to create or grasp for it.
In
fact, the attempt to manufacture this interior peace typically results in its
exact opposite. (Serenity now!) We all know those who think they can bring
about peace by their own efforts. For them, peace depends on controlling the
situation. Such people not only fail to attain peace for themselves; they also
disturb it for others. That is one takeaway from today’s first reading: those who
insisted on their own way of salvation disturbed the “peace of mind” (Acts
15:24) of Christ’s followers. It is not in controlling Christ that we have
peace but in receiving Him.
My peace I give to you. . . .Ultimately, only Jesus
Christ can say this, because only He has peace to give. As both God and man, He
is our reconciliation with the Father. As the risen One He has vanquished
everything and everyone that threatens that peace. Thus even the peace we
extend to others (cf. Mt 9:13) is not our own but what He has entrusted to us.
Further, He does not give something apart from or external to Himself. His
peace comes from within. Indeed, He is our peace, as
Saint Paul bluntly states. (Eph 2:14)
Not as the world gives do I give it to you. The world
gives conditionally, according to its own familiar standards of wealth, power,
and pleasure. If we want peace on the world’s terms, then we must have those
things. If we set our hearts on what the world gives, then our peace will be as
fragile and unstable as the world is. Our Lord gives a peace that doesn’t
depend on the things of this world and so can withstand any setbacks,
sufferings, and even the worst persecutions.
The
world gives by way of compromise with the truth. In effect, it gives not peace
but only a truce. Or, perhaps more accurately, the world threatens conflict if
we do not compromise. So we often settle for a false peace (as we do false
loves and mercies) at the price of truth. Christ’s peace, however, comes from knowledge
of and adherence to the truth. It is the peace that comes from knowing Him and
being found in Him. (cf. Phil 3:9-10)
Finally, since the Great Novena to the Holy Spirit begins this Friday in
anticipation of Pentecost, we should note the relation of Christ’s peace and
the Holy Spirit. Like any other inheritance, this one becomes
effective upon the death of the Giver. Unlike any other, however, this
inheritance comes not as the Giver departs from us, but as He comes to us in a
more powerful way, through His Spirit.
May that same Spirit increase our intimacy with Christ and bring to
fruition His peace within us.
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