Easter Six - My Peace

And Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (Easter six. Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; and John 14:23-29.) The peace of Christ is not the same as we often define peace.

You may wish to read my reflection on John 5:1-9 (the alternate gospel this week).

John 5:1-9

 Most of us long for peace. We long for the sort of peace that comes with quiet and rest. We long for serenity in our lives. We long for peace of mind and lack of anxiety. But although very desirable I suspect that this is not the sort of peace which is being offered by Jesus at this moment, as he prays for his disciples before he then steps into the night to fulfil his passion for us.

This peace is not a peace which is the absence of struggle and suffering. Rather it is a peace which is fully alive and present even in times of great turmoil. I used to think that this was because the peace of Jesus was stronger than the turmoil of the world. And I’m sure that is true. But I now wonder if it is not because it is a different, more potent, peace: the presence of a strong that cannot be vanquished fear, hate, suffering and turmoil.

All my faith life, including my twenty years as a priest, I have struggled to find a balance between prayer and work, quiet and busyness, restorative rest and self-giving availability to others. I have rarely felt that I have achieved or experienced balance. When I have time and space for prayer, rest and recreation I tend to think about work. And when I am working away I fantasize about rest. I do not find peace an easy state to find or be present in. But I think I may have glimpsed the sort of peace Jesus was praying for his disciples.

In 2010 I spent an all too brief summer internship with the Center for Action and Contemplation with Richard Rohr and other wonderful people in New Mexico. As part of our time we went down to El Paso on the border with Juarez in Mexico. On the day we arrived a young Mexican boy had been shot by border guards as he entered the river. We joined a locally organised prayer vigil near the fence that even then ran through the city and the near by country. As is usual at a prayer vigil there were candles and singing and prayers silently held for the young lad and for the grieving communities on both sides of the fence. The difference was that candlelight was drowned out by the floodlights of helicopters that hovered over us and heavily armed police encircling us. There was no bodily violence done to us but the message that our prayer vigil was deemed dangerous and somehow a threat was very clear. It was a powerful experience of a moment in which peace and danger, work and prayer, embrace and division, were experienced in the one moment without a fracturing of the self. For a moment my body, mind and spirit was at one with others who also hoped and prayed for peace in the face of grief and distrust.

Over the years I have reflected on this experience not simply as an exciting or unusual one but as a moment in which I deeply felt the oneness I believe to be at the heart of God. The deep peace of God and the passionate heart of the divine is not one or the other, not even one after the other, but a coming together of what we might think of as separate energies, but which in God is the oneness of divine passionate love.

This means we are gifted with a peace that is most powerfully present where love and peace is most needed – on the cross, in the turmoil and drudgery and cruelty of the world, on our darkest nights. The peace of Christ is not so much a goal or a reward for being still and good but a gift for those in the crucible, those open to the divine – often because all else has been hoped for and tried! The peace of the Christ does not wait until our work is finished or conflict has been resolved but is present where there is trouble and injustice, pain and despair, confusion and conflict. It is the gift of our Lord given to his disciples when he knew he was about to leave them and it was to equip them and us for life in this world. The peace of Christ is ours to claim and enter into – now!

Even so, come Lord Jesus the Christ, and breath your peace into our timid souls that we might find our true nature in you.

This is my work informed by everything I have heard, read and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others. This week I recall with gratitude my time at the Center for Action and Contemplation and the ongoing Daily Reflections Richard Rohr and the team.

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/