Peace Sunday

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Peace Sunday is a day near Remembrance Day when we are meant to join with others in contemplating the meaning of peace, thereby adding weight and commitment to what we’ve long recognized via the beatitudes to be our vocation under Christ . . . i.e. to be peace makers. 

It’s hardly necessary to reiterate on this day that “war is bad, peace is good.” That’s already a given. Some would invoke the word evil to describe human war-mongering, but that would be making the age-old mistake of attributing the motivation-to-kill to an outside personality (most commonly known as the (d)evil). Both war and peace are birthed, nurtured and die in the arena of human consciousness.

Peace Sunday as observed in the Christian Church has potential to do more than remind us that the human species has the capacity for enormous atrocity. It should be able to do more than urge us to be more tolerant, more patient, more attentive to each others’ needs, thereby giving everyday, down-to-earth peace of mind and body a chance to thrive. Seems to me, Peace Sunday should be both an educational and a motivational event spurring us to activities that make peace, both in our immediate environment and in the world generally. Without it, it will ever remain a feel-good exercise changing little.

Surely the witness of Jesus confirms over and over that every human being has a right to life, to health, to nourishment and shelter, to safety and freedom from fear. Surely Jesus’ life and witness have taught us that human conflict arises where the essential virtues of justice and mercy, empathy and love, patience and forbearance are withheld, or possibly never taught and learned. There is, really, no external evil entity to be blamed; there is in our world, however, a disturbing absence of the virtues that give life, that ensure peace. 

In my church this Sunday, we’ll sing the hymn we call The Prayer of St. Francis, or Make me a channel of your peace. As a Christian message for Peace Sunday, it leaves little more to be said. Do click on the link and absorb for a while the gentle prayer of the saint, and make it your prayer . . . from now until Sunday, and for all time.

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