Sixth Sunday of Easter
We crave peace, and often only experience it in moments and temporary stretches. We think peace is a lack of conflict or open aggression, but things like the Cold War and our own experiences of holding grudges and the like tell us that even war need not come to blows to be a war. Peace, as the ancient philosophers and theologians defined it, is the tranquility of order; there is peace when all things are as they ought to be.
When in our Gospel today Jesus speaks of leaving peace with us, particularly His peace, He is speaking of the grace and knowledge He imparts to us such that we can live according to God’s will, according to the order that God put in place: hence we keep Christ’s word within us, letting it guide us in living a properly ordered life, thus attaining peace. The world cannot give us this peace because, as John notes three times in his Gospel, the world is ruled by its own prince—Satan—and is opposed to God’s order. When we live according to our King’s word, when we seek to do God’s will “…on earth as it is in heaven…” we can have true peace.
It is not easy, but it is not impossible either. Whenever we are discouraged, seeking peace but struggling to find it, remember Jesus’ words: “…I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world,” (John 16:33)