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Question
Dear Father Angelo,
First of all, thank you for your service. I often read your beautiful column and pray every day for the success of your apostolate.
I am writing to ask you for clarifications about the concept of peace and what a good Christian could do in case of quarrels in the family and thus become an operator of peace.
Thank you
Giovanni
The Father’s answer
Dear Giovanni,
1. your email forces me to say something about the peace that Christians should bring to the world.
In the meantime, let’s start with Jesus, who did not limit himself to wishing peace to his followers (and it would have already been a good thing) but communicated it to them.
2. It should be further specified that Jesus did not communicate just any peace, but He has given what He has called “his peace” .
3. To know which kind of peace it is, it’s necessary to know how He communicates it.
Well, Jesus communicates it to those who are united with Him as branches to the vine.
After having said to His disciples “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you” (Jn 14:27) a little further on in the same speech he adds: “I have told you this, so that you might have peace in Me” (Jn 16,33).
Therefore, to enjoy the peace of Christ within oneself, to bring it into the family and then also among others, the first condition is to be united to the Lord through grace.
It is therefore a question of welcoming within oneself the same sentiments of Christ.
Those feelings for which he was willing to undergo everything in order to make Himself a sacrifice to offer to the Father so that men might receive the strength to live in peace with God and, in God, also with one another.
4. In particular I would like to underline the silence that Jesus kept while the souls of his accusers were agitated: “But Jesus kept silent” (Mt 26,63) .
And when he opened his mouth he opened it because he was forced by the high priest who asked him to give glory to God. In fact, we read: “But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him: “I beseech you, under oath brfore the living God, to tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” “(Mt 26,63).
Conjuring is a plea for which one is asked to say or do something to praise God.
Jesus does not shy away from giving praise to God and therefore responds calmly, and at the same time telling the whole truth: “You have said so – Jesus replied -; indeed I tell you: from now on you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven ” (Mt 26,64).
5. Jesus had this great peace within himself because he lived that moment of suffering as an offering of Himself for those who were the cause of his suffering.
Peace is the fruit of love.
If we do not love to the point of sacrificing ourselves to God for the good of the people whom the Lord has entrusted to us, it is not possible to have peace.
It is with this love and with this peace that Jesus goes to meet death and goes to meet the devil (who is the cause of it) to defeat both death and the devil.
6. As you see, in order to bring the peace of Christ it is necessary to be united with Christ through grace and it is necessary to be united with Him also psychologically.
Then we also understand better those other words of his: “I told you this so that you may have peace in me” adding immediately after: “In the world you have tribulations, but take courage, I have conquered the world!” (Jn 16:33).
7. It is therefore not possible to bring the peace of Christ without a great interior life made up of actual communion with God, nourished with his word and strengthened with his grace.
At the same time, however, personal commitment is also required.
Indeed that ascetic commitment by which Francis de Sales, particularly inclined to be angular, established a pact with his tongue that he would not move to say a word as long as his heart was in turmoil.
Thank you for encouraging me to this reflection.
With the wish to pass from words to deeds, I accompany you with prayer and bless you
Father Angelo
