War and peace
By Fr. ROY
CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
May
8, 2012
Is peace elusive these
days? I refer more to peace of mind more than anything else, though we
can not discount the fact that we can get the sensation that peace is
also slippery in the social, political, ideological and even religious
spheres.
We just have to look
around to see that some trouble and disturbance are erupting in many
parts of the world, and even in our own country, our own province,
town or city, and even in our places of work and in our homes.
Of course, we know
that even in our own selves, we can not have peace. We can also see
tension and conflicts among the different parts and aspects of own
selves – the mind warring against the heart, reason against feelings,
etc.
This is unavoidable,
and therefore, understandable, given the delicate status of our human
condition, assailed as it is by human frailty, mistakes and failures,
if not sin and malice pursued with hellish intentions. Yes, we can go
to that extreme too.
We need to understand
what true peace is, because there are now many ideas, definitions and
descriptions being attached to it, and frankly, they sound more nice
than true, more feel-good and subjective than objective, more false
and illusory than real.
There is peace offered
by drugs, or by some escape mechanisms like sex, exercise and body
cult, and other forms of panacea and psychological conditioning. These
are Faustian bargains that sooner or later will just fall through.
Peace in society or in
the political and ideological fronts is often an artificial, plastic
product of all kinds of consensus and deterrents to war that are at
best shaky and volatile. It’s a peace built on sand, not on solid
rock.
True peace can only
come from God. “Peace is my farewell to you, my peace is my gift to
you,” Christ says. “I do not give it to you as the world gives peace.”
(Jn 14,27) We have to understand these words well, accepting them
first of all by faith, and then analyzing them with all the resources
of our God-given human powers.
We should never depart
from this peace of Christ. All our efforts to come up with an
estimation of peace for our personal health or for social, economic or
political well-being, should always be inspired by this peace Christ
gives us. It cannot be any other way.
Christ is the prince
of peace. He knows how to tackle any and all sources and causes of
trouble, conflict and war. He meets them head-on, not escaping from
them, and in fact converts these causes of evil and war into paths to
goodness and human redemption.
He goes straight to
the very core of evil, the malice that can spring in the hearts of
men, the primal source of all our troubles, conflicts and wars. And he
does the ultimate to annul the effects of evil, by assuming them
himself, killing them with his own death, and conquering them with his
own resurrection. He always has the last word.
While in pursuing and
trying to gain peace we may have to do some practical and temporary
things, we should never forget that the ultimate source of peace is
Christ himself who is God who became man for our sake. We should
always go to him, praying and asking for his help. We should never set
him aside.
Following him will
indeed involve effort and sacrifice, but we have to look at the bigger
picture, the long-range vision. We will be asked to deny ourselves and
to carry the cross, we will be asked to undertake a continuing
ascetical struggle, but all these come with the territory.
The peace Christ gives
us is the peace he himself won for us on the cross. It is a peace that
comes with some war – against our weaknesses, our temptations, and
sins in all their forms and variety.
We should be wary when
we are presented with an easy program of life that can give us instant
advantages but will certainly lead us nowhere but disaster. This is
the kind of peace the world gives us, as our Lord hinted. Its perks
and advantages are actually only ephemeral, short-lived and shallow.
We have to strengthen
our faith in Christ and hope in the promises he made for us. We can
use these words contained in the prayers of the Mass: “Father, make
our faith strong and our hope sure. May we never doubt that you will
fulfill the promises you have made. Amen!”