Peace The World Cannot Give

“Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.”

Luke 19:42

We hear Jesus say these words in the Gospel reading today and they really ring true in our world at this time. We all think that we know what peace should look like. We have our own particular view of how peace should play out in the world, but have we ever considered how Jesus desires peace in the world. We know that Jesus does in fact desire peace because peace is a fruit of love and God is Love. So where there is no peace, there is no love.

The first thing to consider is whether or not we have peace in our own heart. Is my heart restless? If my heart is restless, where am I looking for peace? Scripture clearing tells us that the world will never be able to bring us true and lasting peace. Only God alone can do that. So peace starts in us – in our own hearts – where the Lord God himself dwells.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

– St Augustine

When we live with a restlessness inside and then call out to the world for peace, even going so far as to demand it or expect it from the world, then we will get swallowed up by the world. We will find ourselves caught up in the whirlwind. Jesus goes on in the gospel today to say,

“For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation”

Luke 19:43-44

When the peace of God is hidden from our eyes, when we don’t know it and experience it in our own hearts, we will be unable to work effectively for the Kingdom of God to bring peace to others. But if we humble ourselves and allow the Lord to purify our own hearts first, then we will have space for the peace of Christ to dwell within us. Once this peace has taken hold of our hearts, we will become unstoppable in our efforts to bring that peace that we have received to others through both word and deed.

“Your best servant is the person who does not  attend so much to hearing what he himself wants, as to willing what he has heard from You.”

– St Augustine

How can we expect peace in the world when our own hearts are restless? The peace of Christ cannot be given away to others from a source in which it does not actually dwell. The Lord desires to dwell in each one of our hearts through His peace, but He will never impose Himself upon us. Like the gentleman that He is, Jesus waits to be invited in.

St. Augustine is a great example to us of our soul’s longing for peace. He was able to find the rest that his heart so deeply longed for insomuch as he was willing to humble himself and invite the Lord into his heart. St Augustine finally experienced this true and lasting peace of God, something he was unable to find in any other source from the world, and it changed his life forever. Once his heart was able to rest in the Lord, he was then able to lead others to this peace of Christ.

Today, we too can read the writings of St. Augutsitne and know more fully this peace that is offered to each human person. The longing for peace has been placed into each person’s heart and thus the Lord desires to fulfill that longing. Those who seek this true and lasting peace of Christ, will indeed find it. 

Before St. Augustine’s conversion, all his attempts at using his knowledge to discover peace were of no avail. It wasn’t until he picked up the bible and read St. Paul’s letters, specifically Romans 13, that St. Augustine was able to allow the Holy Spirit into his heart. All the knowledge of the world could not satisfy his heart’s deepest desires. Only through Sacred Scripture did he meet the Holy Spirit in whom he found rest. The bible is where the Holy Spirit speaks to us as well, if only we would pick it up and read.

“The bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.”

– St Augustine

Although reading the bible can seem like a daunting task, the Holy Spirit meets us right where we are when we pick up and start reading. If we continue on with scripture as a daily source of prayer, we will be led further in our faith to true peace.

Scripture fulfilled in St. Augustine all that he was searching for in in the world. Through Sacred Scripture St. Augustine found rest. We too are called to read daily the bible so that the Holy Spirit may be invited into our own hearts, where we will be purified and where we will find true and lasting peace. Christ who is the sole source of peace is who the world will forever long for. When we know Christ, then and only then will we know peace.

“Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ”

St Jerome