Blessed Are the Peacemakers

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,” we’re told in St. John (John 14:27).

“I have also said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,” John tells us also (John 16:33).

In the Second Letter of St. Peter: “According to his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you wait for these, be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace” (2 Pet. 3:13-14).

“For thus says the Lord God,” we are told in Isaiah, “the holy one of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength’” (Isa. 30:15).

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body,” says St. Paul (Col. 3:15).

The blessing of the peacemakers is the seventh beatitude (Matt. 5:9), and not by chance. In the biblical tradition, the number seven indicates perfection, fullness.

God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, happy to contemplate the beauty and goodness of His works. We’re told, “He saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:31, 2:2-3).

The seventh day, the Sabbath, is the day when humanity is invited to rest in a particular way and embrace God’s peace (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Points 2168-2174; Ex. 31:15).

Shabbat Shalom is the Jewish salutation for the Sabbath, expressing a wish of peace that’s not merely the absence of conflict, but order, fullness, accomplishment, happiness. The opposite of peace isn’t only war, but frustration, interior emptiness, dissatisfaction, worry.

Placing this beatitude seventh signifies that the one who lives according to the six that precede it will receive the grace of peace and will be empowered to spread this peace around themselves, thereby realizing their baptismal vocation as children of God.

All too often, what we may spread, sometimes without knowing it, are our fears, our worries, our attitudes, our anxieties and agitations. But by virtue of our Christian vocation, we are called to transmit God’s peace.

One saint says, “Acquire interior peace, and a multitude will find salvation through you” (St. Seraphim of Sarov, On the Acquisition of the Holy Spirit).

The beatitudes point to the true path of purification. We could look at each one of the beatitudes one by one and see how this is so.

Those who have poverty of heart—you could say that without this virtue, you could never be at peace because attachment to riches, whether material, moral, or spiritual, might always be a source of worry, lead us to be in conflict with ourselves and with others, whereas the poor of heart are supported entirely by God.

They have nothing to defend, nothing to lose, nothing to conquer. And so, they find peace. Humility leads to peace, while pride is one of the worst enemies of interior peace.

In the Psalms, we’re told, “The meek shall possess the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity” (Ps. 37:11).

Someone who has gone through trials, has experienced tears and consolation, and tasted that divine consolation, receive the grace of peace that can be shared with others. The Gospel speaks of meekness, renunciation of violence, bitterness, and anger. This obviously leads to peace.

Those who hunger and seek the justice of the kingdom will therefore be filled with peace. “Great peace,” says the Psalms, “have those who love the law” (Ps. 119:165). One who is merciful also finds peace. Someone who doesn’t forgive will never be at peace.

As regards purity of heart, one who loves with a true and disinterested love will find peace, while someone who seeks his or her own satisfaction will never be satisfied or peaceful.

We can’t transmit peace unless we have it in our hearts. In his Letter to the Colossians, St. Paul says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body” (Col. 3:15).

And so, embracing His peace is a true calling addressed to us by God. Being at peace is an essential element of the Christian vocation.

And there’s a certain urgency here. As the Church advances through history, it’s called to live each of the beatitudes more and more perfectly—but especially this seventh.

And so, we find successive Holy Fathers dealing frequently for peace. Christ strongly invites us to be at peace, embracing God’s peace in our hearts. The first duty of a Christian is not to be perfect or to resolve all problems, but to be at peace.

One writer in 1942 wrote, “Ultimately, we have just one moral duty, to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world” (Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life).

Someone whose heart is not at peace would be vulnerable to the force of division and all the cycles of fear and violence that trouble the world.

Wherever it is within me that’s not at peace gives a foothold to evil. It’s like a gate left open for the devil and those forces of division that devils use to draw the world down to its damnation.

The history of the twentieth century shows this happening again and again. In Europe during the Second World War, or in Rwanda during its violent years, when even people who consider themselves good Christians and were active in the Church performed acts of violence or cowardice of which they would not have dreamed themselves capable.

For hearts not truly at peace in God, hearts ruled by fear or defense mechanisms, and abruptly plunged into situations filled with evil, violence, hate, and division, where social pressures are mounting, such hearts are unable to resist doing evil themselves.

There are times when the existence of a good moral code is by itself not enough. Acquiring peace, through perhaps requiring much work, is more like placing one’s trust in a promise than engaging in an ascetic discipline.

Our Lord’s long discourse at the Last Supper is relevant at this point. He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” And a little later, He said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:1, 27).

The peace that Jesus promises isn’t a worldly peace, a tranquility when things are going well, problems have been resolved, and desire satisfied. Peace of that kind is in fact rather rare.

But the peace that Our Lord promises is a peace that can be received and experienced even in humanly difficult situations, because God is its source and foundation.

Just before His priestly prayer to His Father, Our Lord tells His disciples, “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

The purpose of all He said, His spiritual testament, is to establish peace for those who believe. This peace does not come from outside, from the world (cf. John 14:27). It comes from our communion in faith and love with Jesus, the “Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). It’s a fruit of prayer.

As with all the beatitudes, the matter of the beatitude of peace is above all a divine quality. God is an ocean of peace, and it is in intimate union with Him through prayer that our hearts find peace.

Sometimes it’s urgent, even a duty, to pray for the return of peace. The experience of prayer as a place of peace is one of the criteria for discerning the authenticity of our prayer life. It doesn’t matter if our prayer is poor or dry, if it brings the fruits of peace.

But if this is not the case, we need to ask ourselves whether we’re praying enough or whether we’re praying in the right way.

By virtue of our Christian vocation, we have to try and acquire interior peace and spread it to many other people.

St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians contains another of the many beautiful passages in Scripture promising peace. He says, “The Lord is at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:5–7).

The quest for interior peace is far more than a search for psychological tranquility. It’s concerned with opening up ourselves to the action of God.

We need to understand a simple but spiritually important truth. The more one tends towards peace, the more God’s grace can act in our life. As a placid lake mirrors the sun, so a peaceful heart receives the action and motions of the Spirit.

One writer comments, “The enemy detests this peace, for he knows that this is the place where the Spirit of God dwells, and that God now desires to accomplish great things in us. Consequently, he employs his most devilish means to destroy this peace” (Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat).

St. Francis de Sales says, “Because love resides only in peace, be careful always to keep the holy peace of heart that I so often recommend to you” (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life). Only a peaceful heart can truly love.

And so, we try our best to preserve peace of heart, struggling against worry, anxiety, and spiritual agitation. This peace is an indispensable condition for allowing God to call us to grow in love and fulfillment.

Peace is also needed in order to discern well. If one is not at peace, but is instead troubled, anxious, or agitated, swept up by a torrent of emotions, then one lacks an objective view of reality and can be tempted to take a negative view of everything and call its value into question. But when we are at peace, we see clearly.

One writer says, “In every way, therefore, and especially through peace of soul, we must make ourselves a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. Then we shall have the lamp of spiritual knowledge burning always within us” (St. Diadochos of Photiki, On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination).

St. Ignatius of Loyola had a good grasp of this. He distinguished in his writings between periods of consolation and desolation in the spiritual life and counseled against making serious decisions in the latter state, saying instead that one should stand by decisions reached during the last peaceful spell (Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises).

And so, we could derive a certain rule of conduct from this. When a problem causes you to lose your peace, we don’t hurry to resolve the problem in hopes of regaining peace.

First regain a modicum of peace, and then see what can be done about the problem. This could be expressed in other terms which we may have heard often: to sleep on it or give it a few nights’ sleep, and then we might see things very differently.

In that way we avoid hasty, precipitous decisions that are ruled by fear. And that way we avoid the mistake of tormenting ourselves, trying to solve a problem about which perhaps we can do nothing.

And how do we regain that modicum of peace? By putting ourselves in God’s hands in fervent prayer, making acts of faith and hope, or meditating on passages of Scripture that invite us to trust in God.

And sometimes we can find that peace by just opening our heart to somebody who can help.

We’re told in this beatitude that “the peacemakers will be called children of God” (Matt. 5:9), because they resemble the Father who is a God of peace. They receive the ineffable divine peace and spread it around them.

The Christian life is paradoxical. It often requires an effort, a struggle, and it obliges us to struggle fiercely against sin. Those who give themselves to God never lack work. They have more work than they want.

The Gospels show that the few moments when Jesus took His disciples aside for a little rest, they rarely succeeded, because the crowds rushed after them to whatever place it was that they retreated (Mark 3:7-10, 6:30-34; Luke 5:1, 12:1).

And yet, “the Lord’s burden is easy, and his load is light” (cf. Matt. 11:30). He doesn’t leave his followers without the rest that all people need. “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28-29). I will give you peace.

Being a believer calls for working with generosity, but also knowing how to rest in God.

There is what some people call the Sabbath of the soul, a heart’s rest that God prepares for His children. And it’s indispensable that we would enter into it, otherwise we can go off track.

There can be a real danger of being overwhelmed by activism and stress, of losing our way, even though the world is actually a gift to be embraced, rather than a work to be done.

We can be at risk of claiming God’s place, forgetting that we are just “useless servants” (Luke 17:7-10), and so losing our sense of gratitude and wonder and contemplation.

This is not a small problem in today’s world. The pressure to produce, anxiety about the future, prideful craving for success, the influx of communication technology are often creating workaholics who don’t know how to enjoy physical, psychological and spiritual repose.

It can be a bit concerning if we see society losing its appreciation for the weekly day of rest, when work is set aside and people cultivate the values of thanksgiving, generosity, prayer, community, and familiar relationships, all to be seen as gifts from God.

Jewish tradition affirms that it’s not we human beings who keep the Sabbath, but the Sabbath that keeps us humans by celebrating the fundamental values of life. Without the Sabbath, we’re handed over to the idols of productivity and dehumanization.

Our lives can never really be perfectly balanced, nor can we always find the repose and relaxation we may seek. But there’s one sort of rest that God will never refuse us, which is restful self-abandonment to His love.

And so, in Psalm [16], we’re told, “I keep the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, my body also dwells secure. For you did not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the pit” (Ps. 16:8-10).

And so even in stormy times, we can be like little children, peacefully asleep in the arms of their father, as Jesus was asleep in the boat during the storm on the lake (Mark 4:36-38).

This beatitude points to a deep link between peace and repose, and being a child of God. It’s Jesus Himself who causes us to enter into the repose of God. He brings the mystery of peace to its fruition. He is our true peace, “for in him we are reconciled with God” (cf. Rom. 5:1), with others, with life.

St. Paul said to the Ephesians, “Christ made peace” through His Cross (cf. Eph. 2:14). He is the promised land where God’s people find rest. He is the good shepherd who leads us to the waters of repose to renew our souls (Ps. 23:2-3).

There’s a story told about some explorers many years ago in Alaska who found a lake far from the ocean. And this lake somehow was always warm and cozy enough to swim in. Somehow there were some underground channels that were keeping it warm. In the midst of the unpleasantness of the arctic winter, it would always be warm.

Somebody remarked that Christ is like that lake. No matter how cold this world gets or stormy or difficult, we find peace and warmth in Jesus in His Heart.

The Letter to the Hebrews citing Psalm 95 exhorts us not to allow our hearts to be hardened by unbelief and to enter today into the rest prepared for us by God (Heb. 3:7-8, 4:3).

Happy are those who permit God to rest in their hearts, who do not get tired through disbelief, it says (Ps. 95:7-8).

Happy are those whose hearts repose in the heart of Jesus and who offer Him their hearts as a place of rest.

Happy are those whose pacified hearts also become a place of rest for all their brothers and sisters, embracing them with tenderness and goodness.

There’s a paradox of love. Love is never at rest, because it’s always active, but at the same time, it is true rest. He who loves rests in the loved one and offers the love of his heart as a place of rest [as St. John often tells us] (cf. Deut. 33:12).

If we allow ourselves to be made peaceful by God, growing in faith, hope, and love, and in friendship with Jesus, the Prince of Peace, we shall become peacemakers.

By offering our hearts as places of peace and repose to those whom the Lord causes us to encounter, we travel the paths of our lives, welcoming them and loving them tenderly just as they are, offering them some of the consolation, repose, and peace whose source is in God.

Such peace can be hard to find in today’s world, and helping others find it is a magnificent part of our Christian vocation.

Only when the peace of God reigns in our hearts can we live the eighth beatitude, the acceptance of persecution as a grace (Matt. 5:11-12).

As always, we can turn to Our Lady, the Queen of Peace. Mary, may you help me to rediscover that peace if ever I lose it. Help me to be close to you as I go through my day so that you can instill peace in my heart and my soul and my mind, so that I can be that haven of peace for others, and lead me always to find that peace that I seek in the heart of your Son.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

PKN