Monday June 12, 2017
The world seems to have wholeheartedly embraced this 4th century advice from Flavius Vegetius Renatus: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” How unfortunate! For, every preparation for war in the hope of peace begets only more war. The peace that the world gives—founded on so much violence and bloodshed—is a peace that does not last. We do not seem to learn either from our own historical mistakes or from the teachings of Christ. If we only take the Beatitudes seriously, there is no better and lasting way to peace, the kind of peace that Christ alone offers us. However, Jesus assures us that in the process of living the Beatitudes we will suffer. But as Paul guarantees from his own experience, when sufferings overwhelm us in our struggle for a just cause, the great comfort of Christ, too, will overflow into us. Mahatma Gandhi, a non-Christian, built his entire nonviolent struggle on the Beatitudes and succeeded. Why should we Christians delay founding our lives on the Beatitudes?
