767 ELM STREET * ROCKY HILL * CONNECTICUT 06067
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767 ELM STREET * ROCKY HILL * CONNECTICUT 06067 |
           
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The soldier, above all people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. These are the words of General Douglas MacArthur, reflecting on the life of the soldier in an address at West Point Academy. The desire and quest for peace is at once the most frustrating and necessary activity of human beings. On this day of the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary our mother and Queen of Peace it is important that we reflect on what makes for peace. In his reflections on this World Day Peace, Pope Benedict the XVI reminds us that the vision for peace and peace begins in every family and is brought into the larger society. For the believer in Jesus Christ, peacemaking is a central feature of the Christian life. This shows itself in efforts of reconciling family members, neighborhoods, and nations. There are no dimensions of life that exclude the Christian mission of peacemaking. Pope Benedict XVI calls for an end to war, arms races and the continued existence of large numbers of nuclear weapons. But how do we do this? How are such things possible? In the Spring of 1990 I attended a conference at the United Nations in which U.S. and Soviet government and military personnel were discussing how to build a peaceful relationship among the two great powers. In the discussion, General Yuri Lebedev, former Soviet negotiator of the SALT II treaty remarked, Politics will not save us, what we need is a global shift in spiritual consciousness. Politics will buy us time, but I repeat, we need a spiritual revolution to move us to a new place where all people can thrive. On that first Christmas morn the revolution began, in a manger, in the form of an unarmed child. His parents were refugees and did not know what would become of all of them. Yet, his mother said “yes” to life, to his life. Mary’s ‘yes’ to Jesus was a “yes” to God. It was her “yes” to the will of God that all know of God’s salvation. But this decision of Mary meant a willingness to let herself be swept along into the mysterious ways of God that would lead to salvation for all. She would have to be vulnerable as her son would be vulnerable in a manger and on the cross. She would leave herself open to hurt, violence and even death for the sake of allowing God to work through her. Is that not like all mothers? Even for a ‘mother” of a nation like former Pakistani Prime minister Benazir Bhutto? All people can reflect the same type of “mother’ role as the Blessed Mother. It is the willingness to let God use us for his purposes that we can find the inner peace that manifests in being a person that builds outer peace in our world. It is an inner peace that comes when we let go of our need to control events and allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit that works to bring all to unity. This is risky in the worldly sense because we may not be able to live in our “dream house” or go to our “dream college” or experience those things the larger society may say is “success”. Instead, we may be led to a poor barrio, a cancer ward, into the maelstrom of international politics, or into heart of our family life to bring the Lord’s unarmed and reconciling peace. This takes courage, the same unarmed courage of the Blessed Mother and her son. We cannot know how it will all turn out, but that is faith, the faith modeled in the Blessed Mother. It is a faith that works for the peace. It is a faith that makes hope concrete so that the soldiers’ prayer will be heard and there will be no more wounds and scars of war. It is a faith in which a people, a Christian people, have accepted the will of the One who said “yes” to life modeled in Mary and Jesus, in their own “yes’, and in the process, participate in God’s revolution of love to transform the worl Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D.Min. Return to Saint James Home Page |