~~~^j^~~~
Thank you all!!!
And thanks be to God!
Thank you all!!!
And thanks be to God!
An occasional bit of wit 'n' wisdom as gleaned from the wise and learned. Family fun and times to share.
PEACE BEGINS AT HOME
by
Sister Genevieve Glen, O.S. B.
"Let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which
you were also called in only body [...] be thankful. Let the
word of Christ dwell in your richly, as in all wisdom you teach and
admonish one another, singing, psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."
(Colossians 3: 15-16)"Please go away and leave me in peace!" pleasds the weary mother beset by a gorde of toddlers, all clammoring for her attnetion. She echoes the cry of all those who seek relief from demands they cannot meet from attentions they do nto want, from hostility they cannont withstand. In fact, all of us tend to imagine peace as the cessation of something--demand, disturbance,suffering. However, peace is not an absence but a presence. Real and lasting peace is the gruit of disorder put fight. The peace of Christ is the gruit of the cross throught which Christ righted the order of a sorld gond mad in sin. To enter into Christ's peace, we must seek out that right order. Saint Paul tess us here to seek it by allowing Christ's word to dwell in us richly. Taught by those entrusted with the ministry of the Word, admonished by one another as we share in one another's wisdom, formed by worship--"singing psalms, hyms, and spiritual songs"--, shaped by the Eucharist, whose name means "thanksgiving," our hearts will gradually abandon all the sources of disorder that tear us apart, and will grow into right order of the Gospel. as the peace of Christ, born of a life of selfles strengthen the bonds that unite us to one another as members o Christ's Body. Thus individuals and Body confirm one antoher mutually in a growing peace which can spread outward to embrace family, neighborhood, workplace, and world. The work is slow. The disorder is deep. Individually, and together we will fall out of peace again and again as we struggle. But god is faithful, the promise is sure, and one day Christ's peace will prevail. Our task in the meantime is simple and humble: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you."
God of all peace, you have called me to live Christ's peace in a troubled world. Strengthen your peace within me and in those with whom I share my faith, worship, and life, so that I may be a living sign of hope amid violence and despair.