Peace by Peace

You cannot leave a situation without spiritual injury
unless you leave it lovingly.
-Peace Pilgrim, Steps to Inner Peace

Catherine Doherty (1896-1985)

Is Your Home a Place of Peace and Love?
So many parents complain to us about their children. They come to seek advice about many things, but especially about counteracting what they call the ‘influence of environment.’ By this they mean the children next door, who are allowed to do things which they would never allow their children to do, such as keep late hours, constantly go to movies, use cosmetics, or go out with whomever they wish, whenever they wish. The list of things to fight in today’s environment seems to be endless.

What is the key to combating the prevailing culture, which is overwhelmingly secular? Fundamentally, the answer lies within the souls of parents. A searching examination of conscience must be undertaken. In a way, this searching may lead, from the worldly point of view, to dire consequences; in fact it may well revolutionize the lives of the parents themselves. It has to be a thorough examination, without self-illusion, without compromise.

Together husband and wife must face themselves and see themselves as clearly as is humanly possible. Therefore, such an examination of conscience must begin with fervent prayer. Here are some key questions that parents must ask themselves:

What are your dreams and ambitions? What are your ideas of recreation and fun? Is your home a place where all the youngsters of the block would come in preference to movies or anything else? Is there warm understanding of youth in your home? Deep love of youth? A remembrance of your own youth, its joys and difficulties?

As parents, do you take seriously your most awesome and holy vocation? Or do you bear with it because you have to? Is your home a place of peace and love radiating into every nook and corner and spilling over onto friends and neighbors? Is your standard of living that of keeping up with the Joneses or with Christ?

Prayer of Catherine Doherty
Lord,
give bread to the hungry
and hunger for you
to those who have bread.

http://www.catherinedoherty.org

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The way to help heal the world is to start with your own family.

-Blessed Mother Teresa

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Pope Benedict XVI

‘. . .it is essential to “sense” that the earth is “our common home” and, in our stewardship and service to all, to choose the path of dialogue rather than the path of unilateral decisions. Further international agencies may need to be established in order to confront together the stewardship of this “home” of ours; more important, however, is the need for ever greater conviction about the need for responsible cooperation. The problems looming on the horizon are complex and time is short. In order to face this situation effectively, there is a need to act in harmony. One area where there is a particular need to intensify dialogue between nations is that of the stewardship of the earth's energy resources. The technologically advanced countries are facing two pressing needs in this regard: on the one hand, to reassess the high levels of consumption due to the present model of development, and on the other hand to invest sufficient resources in the search for alternative sources of energy and for greater energy efficiency. The emerging counties are hungry for energy, but at times this hunger is met in a way harmful to poor countries which, due to their insufficient infrastructures, including their technological infrastructures, are forced to undersell the energy resources they do possess. At times, their very political freedom is compromised by forms of protectorate or, in any case, by forms of conditioning which appear clearly humiliating.’ Pope Benedict XVI, The Human Family, a Community of Peace, Message for World Day of Peace, 1 January 2008.

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Bishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Bishop of Imus, at the Synod of Bishops on The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church, 5-26 October 2008:

The Synod rightly deals with the disposition of listening. In Scriptures, when people listen to God's Word they experience true life. If they refuse, life ends in tragedy. Listening is a serious matter. The Church must form hearers of the Word. But listening is not transmitted only by teaching but more by a milieu of listening.

I propose three approaches for deepening the disposition for listening.

1. Our concern is listening in faith. Faith is a gift of the Spirit, yet it also is an exercise of human freedom. Listening in faith means opening one's heart to God's Word, allowing it to penetrate and transform us, and practicing it. It is equivalent to obedience in faith. Formation in listening is integral faith formation. Formation programs should be designed as formation in holistic listening.

2. Events in our world show the tragic effects of the lack of listening: conflicts in families, gaps between generations and nations, and violence. People are trapped in a milieu of monologues, inattentiveness, noise, intolerance and self-absorption. The Church can provide a milieu of dialogue, respect, mutuality and self-transcendence.

3. God speaks and the Church, as servant lends its voice to the Word. But God does not only speak. God also listens especially to the just, widows, orphans, persecuted, and the poor who have no voice. The Church must learn to listen the way God listens and must lend its voice to the voiceless. 7 October 2008

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Pope Benedict XV

‘ Peace, the beautiful gift of God, the name of which, as St Augustine says, is the sweetest word to our hearing and the best and most desirable possession; peace, which was for more than four years implored by the ardent wishes of all good peoples, by the prayers of pious souls and the tears of mothers, begins at last to shine upon the nations. At this We are indeed the happiest of all, and heartily do We rejoice. But this joy of Our paternal heart is disturbed by many bitter anxieties, for if in most places peace is in some sort established and treaties signed, the germs of former enmities remain; and you well know, Venerable Brethren, that there can be no stable peace or lasting treaties, though made after long and difficult negotiations and duly signed, unless there be a return of mutual charity to appease hate and banish enmity.’ ‘ Pope Benedict XV, Encyclical on Peace and Christian Reconciliation, Pentecost Sunday, 23 May 1920.

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