The Shepherds and Peace

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.

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of goodwill” (Luke 2:13-14).

The shepherds are the first to have this peace announced to them—peace which, ultimately, is the presence of Christ in the world. St. Paul says to the Ephesians that “Christ is our peace” (Eph. 2:14).

Later on, on many occasions, Our Lord is going to talk about peace. “Peace, I leave you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (John 14:27).

On an occasion in the boat, when the wind followed down through the mountains and whipped up the waves, and Christ was asleep in the stern of the boat. They woke Him, saying, “Master, does it not concern you that we are perishing?”

These big, burly fishermen had never seen a storm like this. In great contrast, Christ lets them see that He does not suffer from insomnia. Then He stands up and speaks to the elements as though they are children who become too noisy at play. He says, “Peace! Be still!” The wind fell and there came a great calm (Mark 4:35-39).

The angels are the first heralds of this great peace that has to come into the world with the coming of Christ—a peace that we are invited to bring into our hearts, into our minds, into our imagination, into our homes, into the lives of our children and grandchildren, into the lives of society.

In St. Luke, Our Lord says to the apostles, “Into whatsoever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house’” (Luke 10:5).

We are meant to be bringers of peace—bringers of peace and joy wherever we go—to sow that blessed peace that Christ wants to be one of the hallmarks of our existence. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matt. 5:9).

Sometimes we hear United Nations forces being referred to as peacekeepers. But we're not just peacekeepers; we're peacemakers. It's part of our job to impose peace wherever we go and we cannot give what we do not have. Therefore, it’s very important for us to enter deep into the intimacy of Bethlehem, to derive that peace from the Christ Child and from the Holy Family.

On other occasions in His life when Our Lord resurrected, He came to the apostles who were cowering in fear behind closed doors, locked away from the very people they were supposed to be evangelizing. Our Lord comes to them and says, “Peace be to you” (Luke 24:36).

He could have used those moments to harangue them for their lack of belief or lack of courage or fortitude or faith or a whole pile of things. But the Good Shepherd and loving Father seeks to lift up these little children.

On other occasions He said, “Little children, a little while I am with you” (John 13:33). Little children. He speaks to them in very peaceful ways: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled nor let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

The peace that Christ gives us is not a peace that we get from the things of this world, from alcohol, or from a movie, or from drugs, or from a whole pile of other things like a good night’s sleep. It's a deep interior peace in our soul and in our heart. It's part of the way that God builds us up.

Then Paul says, “After all, we do share in God's work. For you are God's farm, God's building. By the grace of God which was given to you, I laid the foundations like a trained master builder. Someone else is building on them. Now each one must be careful how he does the building. For nobody can lay down any other foundation than the one which is there already, namely, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:9-11).

“Do you not realize that you are a temple of God, with the Spirit of God living in you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy that person, because God's temple is holy and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

Our Lord wants to build us up, part and parcel, through helping us to be souls of peace. We see things in a different light. When we have a calm interior and exterior, we see the world in a different way.

That doesn't mean a peace that is chemical or hormonal. There are some people that have chemistry, that even if you explode a bomb beside them, they will not even blink. But that's not the sort of peace that Christ is talking about. Often, it's an acquired peace, a peace that we impose on ourselves and on our environment, like Christ imposed peace on the elements.

There was a time when Our Lord seemed to lose His peace. “When the time of the Jewish Passover was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there” (John 2:13-14).

This made Our Lord angry. There are times when we have to be angry. But there are two types of anger. There's the anger of a mother with a small child—she gets angry, she corrects the child, and it's over. There's also a bad type of anger that lingers, with smolders on, deep in the hearts and minds and souls of people. Maybe it lasts through generations. It's the wrong type of anger. It's an anger without any peace.

“And making a whip out of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, sheep and cattle as well, scattered the money changers' coins, knocked over their tables, and said to the dove-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here, and stop using my Father's house as a market.’ Then his disciples remembered the words of Scripture, ‘I am eaten up with zeal from your house’” (John 2:15-17). And so, peace is restored.

We can address ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as St. Josemaría liked to do, and ask Him to grant us peace—peace in our home, in our work, in our apostolate—the peace of passing unnoticed. It's the peace that we see in the Holy Family, in Bethlehem.

God comes knocking on doors, but He doesn't create a big rumpus. He doesn't draw attention to Himself. He passes unnoticed. The Holy Family fled into Egypt peacefully and remained there until they were told (Matt. 2:13-15, 19-21). And later on, they come back and spend thirty long years living in peace.

Often the plans of God play out in time. As so often happens in our own family lives, God builds up souls, achieves things using the peace of our home to instill virtue, to form souls, to build up children to be great men and women who can take their place in society.

Our Lord invites all parents to live like a great man or woman, a person of virtue, and to spend our life growing in that virtue, so that we can give the sort of example to our children that God wants us to give, helping them to see what a Christian home is, teaching them how to give peace to others, and to be a soul of peace, because peace attracts. It's one of the qualities of our apostolate.

And when we've done our best, sometimes we have to just await the result in peace. T.S. Eliot has a phrase where he says, “Ours is only the trying. The rest is none of our business” (T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets). Very often in family life, ours is only the trying.

We try to sow the seeds that God wants us to sow—with our example, with our virtue, with the peace that we try to create in our own homes. Then when we've done our best, we can just await the result in peace.

One spiritual writer says, “Obedience breeds peace in the humble soul.” Mary and Joseph were obedient to the plans of God in spite of what that meant: the detachment, the change of their own plans, the discomforts, the contradictions. Yet all the time they were obedient. We see them with a great peace.

In particular, we see a peace in St. Joseph as he faces the future, as he solves the problems, as he's so manly, with foresight. He solves the problems without getting excited, without losing his cool, and everything works out for the best.

The Prelate of Opus Dei once wrote that, “In calling us to share in his intimate life, God has incorporated us to the infinite communion of love that exists in the heart of the Trinity. God the Father sent his Son into the world; and later the Father and the Son sent us the Holy Spirit. Since then, and right to the end of time, he pours out through the Church, God's family on earth, his love, joy, and peace” (Javier Echevarría, Letter, January 2007).

I've been very impressed in the last thirty years when fathers of families—mothers also—who come to Confession every week. Sometimes, they've said in different ways, ‘You know, Father, when I come to Confession and try and grow in grace on a weekly basis, I can see there's more peace in my home, more peace in my family.’

It’s a rather interesting witness of how these parents of families have noticed the social effects of grace in our soul, and really, that's quite logical, because if the Blessed Trinity is present in our soul in grace, it's logical that the fruits of the Trinity are seen in the environment around us. That's part of our Christian vocation.

Pope Benedict XVI liked to say, “God is another word for peace” (Benedict XVI, Homily, December 25, 2008). When we seek God, we're seeking peace. When we seek peace, ultimately, we're seeking God in society, in our home, in our soul, in our heart.

He said, “Peace is the goal to which the whole of humanity aspires. For believers, ‘peace’ is one of the most beautiful names of God, who desires understanding among all his children” (Benedict XVI, Homily, December 2, 2006).

It's a beautiful name, peace, and Our Lord gives each one of us a role to play, a mission to fulfill. There may be all sorts of temptations that may come that might try to take away our peace. But we know that as long as we stay close to God, to the sacraments, to grace—that peace will always be there.

There was a story told of a knight under the command of a king. The knight was told not to open the gate of the castle under any circumstances while the king and his army went off to battle.

The knight is there at the gate of the castle. An old lady comes along to the gate and says, ‘Open the gate. Why don't you go to the battle with the other soldiers? Why are you staying at home with the women and the children?’ It's a temptation against his macho feelings, a temptation to have human respect for others (“think of me”), the temptation to think like a wimp and to have an inferiority complex. But the knight said, ‘No, I've been commanded to keep the gates tightly closed.’

Then a wounded soldier came along and said to him, ‘Open to me.’ But the knight said, ‘You should go and seek help outside the castle, because the king told me not to open the gate.’ It's a temptation to function with his heart instead of with his reason.

Then a third person comes with a magic sword and says, ‘If you go into battle with this magic sword, you can win the battle. You can be a hero. Take it and go into battle.’ It's a temptation to pride, to vanity, to success, to be a Messiah. He refuses that temptation.

Likewise, we're called to be serene in doing what God asked of us. Probably in the course of our lives, God will not ask us to do many spectacular things. But He may ask us every day of our lives to do very ordinary things:

To take care of the schedule in our home. To create an atmosphere of family life around Christmastime. To be available to the other members of our family. To put our own plans in secondary place. To be available, to serve.

That's what is the best: fulfilling the ordinary things peacefully and silently, like Joseph did in Bethlehem.

If we look carefully at how St. Joseph fulfilled all the tasks that were given to him at this time, we can see that he really shone. And that's where we have to shine—in the ordinary things that God is asking of us. Obedience in the small things. Trusting in God. Just doing what He asked us to do, without any heroics, and often with great patience.

Christ came to tear down the wall separating Jews and Gentiles and making of the two a new people that would serve God in justice and holiness. He came to instill peace (cf. Eph. 2:14-17), “not only between Jews and non-Jews, but between all nations, since all have their origin in the same God, the one Creator and Lord of the universe” (Benedict XVI, Homily, November 29, 2006).

One of the great messages of the Catholic Church is the dignity of every human person. And one of the great commandments of Our Lord is to love everybody as ourselves, to create this atmosphere of charity, unity, and peace around us.

There's a point in The Way where St. Josemaría says, “So many glories of France are glories of mine!” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 525). There's a bit of a history behind that. He was from Spain. Very often neighbors historically are at each other's throats. They find it difficult to live with each other. But in that phrase, he likes to say that ‘I recognize the great achievements of other nations.’

“Catholic” means universal, and to have a Catholic heart means we recognize the great achievements of humanity in people from other places or other nationalities.

Pope Benedict, on one occasion, chose the theme of “In truth, peace” as his message for the 2006 World Day of Peace which is on January 1st. He said, “I wanted to express the conviction that whenever men and women are enlightened by the splendor of truth, they naturally set out on the path of peace.”

The Splendor of Truth was the title of an encyclical of John Paul II: Veritatis splendor. By knowing the truth, by spreading the truth in our apostolate, the truth, ultimately, who is Christ—“I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6)—we help to bring about that peace in the world. Real peace came into the world only with the coming of the Messiah, and that's why peace is such a central goal for us.

Pope Benedict says, “If peace is the aspiration of every person of good will, for Christ's disciples it is a permanent mandate that involves all; it is a demanding mission that impels them to announce and witness to ‘the Gospel of Peace’, proclaiming that recognition of God's [full] truth is an indispensable precondition for the consolidation of [the truth of] peace” (Benedict XVI, Homily for the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2006).

We have the Gospel of peace. How relevant for us, then, to spend a few moments every day reading a word, a phrase, a chapter of that Gospel of peace, so that we can have more peace in our hearts, in our souls, in our families, and spread it to many other people.

St. Bernard writes, “Now our peace is not promised but sent; it is not deferred but granted, not prophesied but achieved. It is as if God the Father sent upon the earth a sackful of his mercy, which will burst open during Our Lord's Passion to pour forth its hidden contents—the price of our redemption. It was only a small sack, but it was very full. As Scripture says to us: ‘a child has been given to us’ (Isa. 9:6), but in him ‘dwells all the fullness of divine nature’” (Col. 2:9) (St. Bernard, Sermon 1 on the Epiphany of the Lord).

“Let us thank God for his infinite mercy, also in the name of those who have not recognized it. And let us feel the need to love all human beings” (Javier Echevarría, Letter, January 1, 2007), to take care of all the people God has placed around us.

That calling to instill peace is a constant refrain of the Church. In one of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, it says, “Earthly peace which comes from love of our fellow man is a type and a result of the peace of Christ issuing from God the Father. The incarnate Son himself, the prince of peace, reconciled all men to God through his Cross. In his own flesh he killed hatred; and after he had risen, he poured out the spirit of charity into the hearts of men.”

We enter into the stable of Bethlehem to adore the Prince of Peace. The peace of God completely transcends earthly peace. The night of Christ's birth is a silent night, a holy night, a night of peace. Peace in our own lives is the result of an interior order, an awareness of our failings, and a complete confidence in them.

St. Josemaría liked to emphasize that peace is also a result of struggle. Struggle with ourselves. Struggle with the old person there inside us, with our wounded human nature. It's a consequence of humility, an awareness of our divine filiation. Like a small child in its mother's arms, the Christ Child in the arms of Our Lady speaks to us of peace (cf. J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 73).

We can lose our peace through anger, pride, impatience when we're unable to see the providential hand of God in circumstances.

There was a man once who was supposed to go shopping with his wife. They had arranged to meet at a certain place at a certain time. The wife was twenty minutes late. The husband was getting more and more exasperated. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.

There was a little machine nearby that takes these instant photographs. He went there and got three or four photographs of himself taken with the most terrible face that he could put on himself.

When the photographs came out of the machine, he was happy with what that facial expression said. He gave it to the local guard and said, ‘Look, if a lady comes along with a blue coat and a brown handbag, please give her these photographs.’ He went away.

Eventually, the wife turned up. She received the photographs, and she put them in her handbag. She kept them.

For the rest of her life, every time that she was asked if she was married, she would take out the photographs, show them to the person, and say, ‘Yes, I'm married to this.’ She got the last laugh.

If we ever lose our peace, one of the great ways to recover our peace can be through the sacrament of Confession—the humble confession of our sins. Getting all the garbage out can be a great way to go forward in peace. Sin, souls, loneliness, anxiety, and sadness in the soul.

The restoration of peace to our hearts can be the best way to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ. True peace gives joy and serenity. If you have the chance these days, try and encourage people around you to get to the sacrament of Confession, or remind them, or organize people to get there.

“The task of fostering peace,” said the Prelate of Opus Dei, “is not only in the hands of those who have direct responsibility for public affairs; it's also in the hands of all citizens without exception, in accord with each one's possibilities. Let us carry out each day this joyful task of striving to be ‘sowers of peace and joy’ (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 59; Christ Is Passing By, Point 168)...in the various spheres of our life” (Javier Echevarría, Letter, January 2007).

Lord, help me to see the opportunities that you give me to bring peace to people with my words, with my actions, with my kindness, with my patience.

The first field in which we have to cultivate peace is in our own soul, where this divine gift should reign, so that we can then transmit it to others. From man's heart comes evil. We're told how “out of the heart of man come all sorts of ugly things: anger, gluttony, lust, pride, envy, jealousy” (cf. Matt. 15:19).

But if we're continually getting rid of these bad seeds, God can place peace in our soul. “The good man out of the treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

Pope Benedict said, “Grace is the power that transforms man and the world; peace is the mature fruit of this transformation” (Benedict XVI, Homily, November 29, 2006).

If we’re to try to convert the world, to convert society, we start by being ourselves converted. If we help everybody around us, and particularly those who are leaders in society, to have their hearts full of peace with the grace of God, they will infuse a greater peace around them—a peace even when our nerves are excited, an interior peace when we may be anxious.

We can trust the apparent negligences of God, which might sometimes lead us to wonder about our peace. We go forward like the donkey on the way to Bethlehem, putting one foot in front of the other, living the theology of the donkey, not singing, not getting fed up, but being a good instrument, a little donkey that every day does the will of God.

We can ask Our Lady, as we look at her in Bethlehem, a picture of peace and serenity, with the Christ Child in her arms, that she might teach us to have a greater amount of this blessed gift in our soul, in our hearts, and in our lives.

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.

UI