Monday, May 26, 2014

Tuesday of the 5th Week of Easter, Cycle A - May 20, 2014

Tuesday of the 5th Week of Easter
May 20, 2014       6:30am

 

Jesus says: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”
I imagine we could talk a long time about peace and about how the peace Jesus offers is different from the peace we usually experience.
I have a couple of ideas that came together for me yesterday afternoon.

First, I connect the peace Jesus offers with Saint Paul’s classic description of love in First Corinthians.
Paul lists quite a number of traits or virtues that comprise love.
One of them strikes me as especially central to the peace that Jesus offers.
Paul says: “Love does not seek its own interests.”
The idea here is that with the love of Jesus, we look to the well-being of the other person in addition to the well-being of ourselves.
This means that even if we feel injured and think that we are an aggrieved party, we also look to what is going in the other person.
We refrain from demonizing and try to understand that person’s story and perspective.
This tends to slow us down and tame vengeful, unpeaceful feelings. 
“Not seeking our own interests” also means that we even look to the common good of all.
We do this even when that may not be to my best advantage but when it is to the overall good of all.
This also seems central to the peace that Jesus offers.

And then the other thing that makes Jesus’ peace different is Jesus himself – his presence and life and strength that comes to us through the sacraments.
This empowers us to be focused on the good of the other as well as ourselves.
Jesus’ grace enables us to do this.

And with this, we can have a peace first with God and then a peace in our relationships that is far different from what we can achieve in any other place.