Building a True and Lasting Peace

Dear Friends,

Our country marks the unofficial start of summer with this Memorial Day weekend. We especially love the playfulness and leisure, the family gatherings, and the very thought of a long summer ahead. The day itself compels us to think of wars gone by and cemeteries decorated to honor our fallen soldiers. We look at Veterans marching in parades and see behind their sunglasses the memories of people with whom they marched, the battles fought, the moment before artillery fire broke out.

But despite our holiday spirit, famine, fighting and the fury of those who would rule supreme in their part of the world still go on. Uvalde, Laguna Woods, Buffalo, and the entire nation weep for the innocent lives that were taken by senseless acts of gun violence recently. Ukraine is in ruins. The American southwest is devastated by fire.

On this Memorial Day weekend, what is our part to build sustain and strengthen a true and lasting peace, a world that is restored to God’s original meaning?

Remember the Prayer of Saint Francis? “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace?” That’s what I wish for your heart today.

Some contemporary of ours, whose name I don’t know, has rewritten the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis to include us grappling with the issues of our day. The prayer follows below, with the hope that you might even edit it more to include your own hopes and desires for peace:
        Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
        Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion.
        Help us remove the venom from our judgments.
        Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters.
        You are faithful and trustworthy; may our words be seeds of goodness for the world:
        where there is shouting, let us practice listening;
        where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony;
        where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity;
        where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity;
        where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety;
        where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions;
        where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust;
        where there is hostility, let us bring respect;
        where there is falsehood, let us bring truth.
        Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
        Amen.

Summer can be, for all of us, a further descent into darkness or a season that brings freshness and light, new growth in ourselves and to those with whom we come in contact. May we become the very encouragement of God for others.

~Sister Joan Sobala