Peace is one
thing every human being desires. Peace
is the ability to remain calm and focused even while in the midst of any and
every “trouble” we encounter. The
trouble that Christians will especially face are the various persecutions of
the world when we live in accord with the Truth. And though there are many moral truths
presented clearly by our faith that the world attacks, there are also other
forms of troubles we’ll encounter within the world today.
One of the
most manifest troubles inflicted upon many by the world comes in the form of
constant visual, auditory and mental stimulation. Our world is a noisy world. Modern electronics, the mass media, commercials,
radio, Internet, social media and so many other parts of our daily life have
the subtle effect of distracting us, stimulating us, and stealing away the
peace of Christ.
The story of
our lives can be read as an endless—and sometimes frantic and sorrowfully
misguided—search for what we think will satisfy and content us. If we look at the trajectory of our lives,
it’s hard to deny that human beings are creatures of restless hearts, hungrily
pursuing all the things we believe will quiet our desires and quell our deepest
yearnings.
Jesus
proclaims that He is the answer to our restlessness and the secret to our
heart’s greatest longing (John 16:29-33).
But the peace Jesus offers is eminently deeper and more resilient than a
feeling that we have one day but is gone the next. The peace that we find in Jesus is the
pervasive and abiding serenity that characterizes the person who has been
transformed by, and become one with, the greatest possible good, and for
Christians that good has a name: Jesus.
This is why enjoying the peace Jesus brings requires being initiated
into a certain way of life, a way of life starting in baptism that Christians
call discipleship. We grow into peace as
we follow, learn from, imitate, and become increasingly like Christ. Of course, along the way we discover that we
must relinquish any desires, attitudes, habits, or affections that can never
bring us peace because they’re at odds with the ways of God that are revealed
in Jesus.
St. Thomas
Aquinas wrote: “There only will you have true peace where true good is
desired.” The plot of the Christian life
is to form us into the kind of persons who know true peace because we’ve
learned to love God more than anything else.
When we’ve become that man or woman, we’ll understand exactly what Jesus
meant when He told His disciples: “I tell you all this that
in me you may find peace.” (John
16:33)
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