“Peace be with you.” With these reassuring words, our new Pope greeted the world. He was quoting the risen Jesus, who thus greeted His Apostles. These words reecho throughout the liturgies of the Easter season, including Pentecost.
During a homily at a parish the Sisters recently attended, the priest invited congregants to raise their hands if they would like more peace in their lives. Every hand in the church went up. Peace is something we all desire. How do we maintain, or regain, peace? I offer three suggestions: repentance, prayer, and prioritization based on one’s state in life.
A dear Benedictine family friend begins all his letters, “Peace be with you.” “Peace” is the Benedictine motto, a quality almost tangibly emanating from every Benedictine I have met. I think it no coincidence that the Benedictine Jubilee medal is known as a sacramental of great power against demonic influence. Peace and freedom from sin go hand in hand. The devil is a sower of discord, hatred, and chaos. The holier an individual becomes, the more peace he experiences. Saints deal peacefully — even blithely — with the devil himself. One of the Benedictine medals has an inscription that addresses the devil rather impertinently: “Get behind me, Satan; what you proffer are evil things: drink the poison yourself!” For peace in your own life, go to Confession, make a practical resolution to combat your most entrenched sin, and, if you or your family has ever been involved with any occult or satanic practices, seek a priest’s help to address this.
Second: pray! Prayer puts us in direct contact with the Trinity. Christ is the Prince of Peace. Peace is one of the fruits of His Spirit. Together their presence brings peace and puts the sorrows and sufferings of life in perspective. St. Josemaria Escriva said he never entered the chapel, carrying a great weight of suffering, without feeling it being lifted from him in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. This takes faith and practice. It is something God wants for you! Be faithful to prayer each day, and He will do the rest.
Finally, confusion and lack of peace result when we do not know our priorities or lack courage to live by them. God is first. Spouse and children are second. Everything else — extended family, work — comes after. If sports or work eat away my time of personal prayer, my time of Sunday worship, or my time with family, I need to reorder my week. Living out one’s priorities is not always easy, but it always brings peace.
St. Thomas Aquinas famously taught that peace is not the absence of conflict, but the tranquility of order. This is why Jesus distinguishes “His” peace from “the world’s” peace: “My peace I give you; not as the world gives peace do I give peace.” The “world’s peace” comes from making the comfortable choices. Jesus’ peace comes from making the right ones. It often keeps company with suffering. It is true peace.
Sr. Maria Veritas Marks is a member of the Ann Arbor-based Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.
