Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Peace and Justice

  • Mass for Peace and Justice

    Mass for Peace and Justice

    Mass for the school children.
    Today’s Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6 | Psalm 72 | Philippians 4:6-9 | Matthew 5: 1-12

    “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”  That’s a wonderful promise that Jesus makes in today’s Gospel reading, and I think it’s a promise we should hang on to in these days when peace doesn’t always seem so near to us.

    Jesus tells us today that we can make peace happen in a world that isn’t always peaceful, and we do that by being peacemakers.  So what are peacemakers and what do they do?

    First of all, peacemakers are people who know that God loves us and wants us to be safe and happy.  Peacemakers are people who know that arguing and fighting never accomplish anything but hard feelings, but that conversation and understanding can overcome just about anything.  Peacemakers are people who want what’s right, and care about other people from their heart.  Peacemakers are people who know that they are loved, and want other people to know that too.  The world needs a lot of peacemakers, now and always.

    The good news is that you can be a peacemaker.  When you hear about wars and conflict and crime, it might seem like there is nothing we can do to change any of that.  But that’s not true.  We often sing the song “Let There Be Peace on Earth” and there’s a line in it that says, “let it begin with me.”  It’s a great line because peace can begin with us, and it’s supposed to.  So how do we do that?

    Well, think about all those qualities of peacemakers that I just talked about.  The first thing you can do to be a peacemaker is to remember God loves you.  You might remember hearing me say that the most important thing you can remember about God is that he loves you, and if that’s all that you remember, it will get you pretty far.  That’s true here.  Peacemakers have to remember that God loves them, because God’s love overcomes fear and hate and sadness.   When you remember that God loves you, you will naturally want other people to know that God loves them too. 

    Peacemakers are people who want what’s right.  So they stand up for others when they are being bullied or gossiped about, and they refuse to take part in those kinds of things.  They are people who see the best in others and remember that Jesus is present in every person in some way.  They remember that Jesus is in them too, and some days, we might be the only Jesus that someone else sees.  And they see it when we are compassionate and kind to them and to other people.

    Peacemakers are people who remember that arguing and fighting never accomplish anything.  And so they seek to have real conversations instead of arguments.  They don’t call people names, or discriminate against others based on the color of their skin or the place where they were born or the language that they speak.  They remember that God loves everyone in every place, and so they need to love everyone too. 

    Peacemakers are people who forgive from their heart.  They don’t hang on to grudges, and they remember that God has forgiven them many times for so many things, so the least they can do is to forgive others too.

    Peacemakers are people who pray for peace.  That’s why we are celebrating a Mass for peace and justice today.  We know that true peace can only come from Jesus.  It’s not something we can force on the world or even on those close to us.  Real peace comes from God who is merciful and just and loving.  So they pray for peace every day: peace in far away lands where wars are being fought, peace in our community and our school and even in our families.  Peace is a gift, and we pray that God would spread that gift far and wide and help everyone to receive it.

    We can be peacemakers.  We can remember that we are loved and then share that love.  We can want what’s right and see the best in others.  We can work for understanding and real conversations rather than arguing and fighting.  We can refuse to gossip and discriminate against others and forgive from our hearts.  We can pray for peace every day. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

  • Homily for the Holy Hour for Peace in the Holy Land

    Homily for the Holy Hour for Peace in the Holy Land

    We have come together tonight to pray for peace. And it’s good that we do that.  We echo in our hearts tonight the sentiment of Our Lord who offered us peace, as we just heard, during the Last Supper, just before his death and resurrection.  The fact that peace was on our Savior’s mind and heart during his last gathering with the Apostles shows us how important peace is and how seriously we ought to take it.

    It’s instructive to me that Jesus offers a peace “not as the world gives.” The peace that Jesus offers is peace not based on the absence of conflict, peace not achieved through mutually assured destruction, peace not even reached through complex negotiation. This is a peace based on mercy, a peace based on unity – for which our Savior prayed later in John’s Gospel, just before his death: a peace based on our identity as children of God.

    This is a peace that is freely offered, but must also be freely accepted.  It’s a peace that, as the song says, must “begin with me.”  Violence only begets more violence.  Hate only begets more hate.  And all of it is exacerbated by indifference and apathy, which causes violence and hate to boil over.  We have to actively pursue peace by working for justice.  We have to pursue peace by rooting out all hatred and indifference from our own hearts, from our own lives.  True peace will never happen unless we can do that.

    Peace, too, comes from hearing the voices that speak of peace.  We don’t hear about peace in the news or from talk shows and podcasts.  We hear about peace only when we come to our God in moments of prayer, in reading of Scripture, in praying the Rosary, in devotion to God in company with the angels and saints.  We have to feed our souls with the right food, and not get caught up in the hatred that is engendered by hearing the wrong voices.  Peace – true peace – is only spoken by our God.

    In the end, it doesn’t really matter where the conflict shows itself.  Whether it’s Russia and Ukraine, or Israel and Palestine, or even right here in our own community, the beginning of the end of that conflict starts with us.  We have to be people who seek reconciliation for past hurts, who forgive from the heart as our Lord begs us to do in the Gospels, who live the love that we have received from our Lord as freely as he gives it to us.  We cannot let conflict be the only voice that is heard at this hour; people have to hear the peace in our hearts, our words of pardon and forgiveness, the story of God’s mercy, our Savior’s offer of true peace.

    Tonight, we are making a step forward in seeking lasting peace.  Prayer is powerful – of that we are certain – and prayer guides our efforts for justice and reconciliation and healing.  Prayer also gives us the call and the grace to make peace begin with me.

    May God grant us true and lasting peace.  May God have mercy on all of us.

  • 9-11: Taking the Wooden Beams Out of Our Eyes

    9-11: Taking the Wooden Beams Out of Our Eyes

    Today’s readings

    When I hear today’s Gospel reading, I think about my dad. When he was alive, he was a guy who seemed to know everyone. Anywhere we went, he’d find someone he knew, even on vacation! But he wouldn’t just know their names, he’d also know something about them. He would know their talents, stuff they were good at; he’d also sometimes know if they were going through some kind of difficulty or hard time. But most often, he always was able to see what was good in them.

    That’s the kind of thing I think Jesus wants us to do in our Gospel reading. He wants us to know each other as brothers and sisters, instead of seeing everyone’s faults and sins and downfalls. Because we all have those things. And if we focus on them, we’ll never be the children of God we were created to be. He uses the hyperbole of seeing a splinter in the other person’s eye but missing the wooden beam in our own. We all have sins and downfalls, but we all have grace and blessing. We’ve got to look for that, look for the best in people, because that’s what makes us children of God.

    Fourteen years ago today, right around this time in the morning, I was in my room in seminary. Most of the other guys in my class had a class at that time, but I didn’t. So I was working on some homework, and then decided to go online and read some of the news. The first headline I saw said something like “Airplane Collides with World Trade Center.” I turned on the television and saw the tower down, and thought it had to be some kind of horrible accident. Then I saw the second plane fly into the second tower, and at that point everyone knew something terrible was happening. I will never forget that horrible moment.

    Over the course of the following days, we came to know that over three thousand people died that day, including many police and fire fighters. And our world has changed a lot ever since: there is more security when you get on an airplane, more security everywhere, it seems. And if we would listen to what Jesus is telling us today, maybe things like this wouldn’t have to happen.

    Even this week, a Sikh man was attacked right near here in Darien, because the attacker thought he was a terrorist. We have to learn to take the wooden beams out of our eyes so that we can see each other as brothers and sisters. Only then will we become everything that God intends for us.

    Today on this fourteenth anniversary of 9-11, we should do a lot of things. We should study what happened that day so that we won’t repeat the mistakes that were made. We should remember those who gave their lives that day, especially those who tried to help the victims, and we should pray for ourselves and all people that we can become peaceful people who love the Lord and see each other as brothers and sisters, without all those splinters or beams in our eyes.