Peace 

   “Peace is that deep, interior stillness that tells you that no matter what kind of catastrophe might be happening in your life or in the world, everything is going to be OK.” (Dr. Gregory Bottaro, “The Mindful Catholic”) 

   There are peace conferences, peace accords, peace agreements, all trying to bring the world to peace.  They never succeed.  They might work for a while, but history proves that we are not a peaceful people.  Pride drives us to think we have all the answers and selfishness tells us we deserve whatever we desire.  There can be no peace in such attitudes, only pauses in conflict.

   Peace is so much more than the absence of conflict or war.  It is a knowledge that nothing is more vital that knowing God and trusting that His plan is one of peace regardless the evidence presented by a sinful, evil world.  We turn from God and look to self and when we do so, we risk God allowing us to rely upon self until we understand the futility of that plan.

   The world was created to be peaceful.  Our earliest parents walked with God, spoke with Him, and understood that He had created them out of love.  In an act of pride, they lost that relationship and destined all of humanity to live in a world stained by sin where peace can not be found.

   But all was not lost.  Before time began the Word of God, Jesus Christ, was there.  He would restore to humanity what had been lost.  He would pay the price to again allow us to find peace.  In His love, He would right the wrong.  “For if, by the transgression of one person, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5: 17).

   Until understand that there will never be true peace in this world we will continue to  seek it everywhere but where it truly is; in God. 

Only in You is there peace.

We seek it in all the wrong ways.

Help us turn to You.

To find our peace in Your love. 

Amen