Christmas and the Gift of Peace

At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace because peace is a sign of God’s presence and Jesus is God made man. The prophet Isaiah spoke of God’s kingdom, God’s presence among his human creatures, as a reign of peace. What is the peace we speak of and desire this Christmas, 2001?

 

First, peace is a gift. In God’s kingdom, all is grace or gift. The peace which marks that kingdom is not something we can achieve on our own. Peace is a form of reconciliation much deeper than just getting along together without violence. It is an order born of God’s getting along with each of us by graciously closing the gap between Himself and us, a gap caused by sin. Peace is the tranquility to be found in friendship with God and in the order based on that friendship.

 

Cardinal Bernardin’s last book was titled, “The Gift of Peace.” The Cardinal knew that peace is a gift from God, but he knew also that sometimes it is hard to receive a gift. The short book he wrote as a testament at the end of his life movingly describes the struggle he underwent to let go of all that filled his life so that God could give him the gift of peace. Letting go of what seems absolutely important to us is part of becoming peaceful, even in the face of death.

 

Letting go in order to find peace is a challenge not only to individual persons but also to entire peoples. The American people are at war this Christmas, but it is a strange kind of war, one fought not against nations but against a cause and groups dedicated to that cause. Declared in order to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks, it is a war which aims to find peace through conquest. Conquest by arms is one way to end a violent attack by an enemy, and sometimes it is necessary in order to protect our lives and property. But conquest by arms does not produce the peace we sing about at Christmas. That peace comes from conversion of hearts, and conversion is a pure gift from God.

 

A sign of our conversion to God’s ways, even as we fight to conquer an enemy, is our ability to love our enemies. Love of enemies is a sign of God’s presence, because, left to our own devices, we would hate our enemies. Loving our enemies does not mean that we forget they are our enemies. This is foolish sentimentalism. Genuine terrorists are not nice people with whom we could easily get along if we just got to know them better. They hate us and are our enemies; but they are also loved by God and, because they are loved by God, we can, with God’s grace, come to love them. Loving them means wishing them well; it means praying for their conversion to God’s ways, especially to peaceful ways.

 

What must we let go of in order to receive the gift of peace? Perhaps the obstacles to peace, both individual and common, will become clear to us only in praying for peace. Pope John Paul II has asked us to pray for peace on Jan. 1, the annual World Day for Peace, and again on Jan. 24, 2002. He has invited the representatives of all the world religions to come to Assisi, the city of St. Francis, on Jan. 24 to pray for peace. The Pope announced last Nov. 18: “In particular, we wish to bring Christians and Muslims together to proclaim to the world that religion must never be a reason for conflict, hatred and violence. In this historic moment, humanity needs to see gestures of peace and to hear words of hope.”

 

The original papal message for the Jan. 1 annual World Day of Peace this year spoke of conflicts caused by globalization. After the attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. on Sept. 11, the Holy Father wrote a new message speaking of conflicts caused by terrorism. The Pope writes: “It is precisely peace born of justice and forgiveness that is under assault today by international terrorism. In recent years, especially since the end of the Cold War, terrorism has developed into a sophisticated network of political, economic and technical collusion which goes beyond national borders to embrace the whole world. ... Terrorism springs from hatred, and it generates isolation, mistrust and closure. ... Terrorism is built on contempt for human life. ...There exists therefore a right to defend oneself against terrorism, a right which, as always, must be exercised with respect for moral and legal limits in the choice of ends and means. The guilty must be correctly identified, since criminal culpability is always personal and cannot be extended to the nation, ethnic group or religion to which the terrorists may belong.”

 

To address terrorism as disciples of the Prince of Peace, however, means going beyond the resolution of armed conflict to the forgiveness which is brought to us by Christ. Because God forgives us, we must forgive one another. Only then is permanent peace possible. “Forgiveness,” writes the Pope, “involves an apparent short-term loss for a real long-term gain. Violence is the exact opposite; opting as it does for an apparent short-term gain, it involves a real and permanent loss. Forgiveness may seem like weakness, but it demands great spiritual strength and moral courage, both in granting it and in accepting it.”

 

Convinced that the religious leaders of the world have a responsibility for teaching the dignity of each human person and the unity of the human family, the Holy Father is calling them together in Assisi on Jan. 24 to pray for peace. “To pray for peace is to pray for justice. ... It is to pray for freedom, especially for the religious freedom that is a basic human and civil right of every individual. To pray for peace is to seek God’s forgiveness.”

 

Justice, freedom, forgiveness—let these be in our hearts as we pray for peace this Christmas. May Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, bring peace to the land of his birth, to the lands where Catholics of the Archdiocese were born and to this land where we live together now. May this peace be born in the conversion of each of us and of those we love to the ways of the God of Abraham, whom disciples of Jesus recognize as his Father and ours. To all of you, a blessed and peace-filled Christmas.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Top

---