Jesus is a God of peace
Monday, January 1, 2024
Victor Martell
One of the Gospel beatitudes says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
Children of God, because our God is a God of peace, he is not a God of revenge, he is not a violent God, he is a God who seeks love, because he himself is love. However, most of the time, when we are mistreated, we react violently and stop being peaceful, and this is because we lack prayer and clean enough ears to listen.
The history of the Church includes wonderful men and women — and in today's world there are also men and women — who are true saints, although they will never be declared saints, nor will anyone remember them. They are saints because they demonstrate it in their daily lives.
Examples like Francis of Assisi: He walked from town to town, from village to village. He went through the mountains and everywhere praising and glorifying the Lord, loving and respecting even the animals of the field, the flowers, and even more so the people. In his daily life he reconciled with everything, loving everyone, even though at first, they threw him out of the towns with stones, because they said he was crazy. Later they understood that he was a great saint, and like him, thousands of true saints have existed and exist.
How important it would be at this moment, when so many innocent people are dying in the war in the Middle East, for a saint like Francis of Assisi to appear, and to speak to the hearts of those who decide, that this war should end and peace return.
Holiness is manifested by the peace that one lives within oneself, by the peace that one breathes, and mainly by the peace that one gives. The men and women of God are messengers of peace. In their daily lives they help the needy and those who have nothing, seeing Jesus himself in the poor, because he is love. There is an inconsistency, a lack of logic between those of us who call ourselves Catholics or Christians, and the way we live and our selfishness: It is a radical distance between the Gospel of Christ and our way of living.
Our God is a God of justice, he is a God of harmony, unity and joy. He is a God who wants a new and fraternal world. He is a God who wants everyone, absolutely everyone, to have something to wear, to have access to education, to get a bite of food daily, to participate in the decisions of our city, rather than being told what to do by a group that forces us to follow their decisions, which are almost always wrong.
He is a God who made a wonderful world, and we are decimating his world. Personal sins, social sins, environmental sin. Our God is a God of peace, not of fratricidal wars. And it is up to us to fight to make this possible. We all have the obligation to do our bit to mend the great social distances, so that we all love each other and are able to give a little of what he gives us every day.
Away with the traits of pride, of ridiculous vanity. We say to women: Stop the extreme flirtation, because it is a double-edged sword, it is playing with fire. Rather imitate the most holy Mary: clean, pure, good, and virginal. Always a simple woman, despite being the mother of God, she did not boast of her motherhood, but rather she walked behind Christ, submissive and docile.
We say to men: Be like St. Joseph, always attentive to Christ, without boasting about being the foster father of Jesus, maintaining the composure of a great father and a great husband, working and lavishing food upon his house, not leaving, or partying every weekend, cheating on your wife without thinking about your children, with whom you have obligations, because you brought them into this world without asking for their consent.
Christ Jesus, the greatest of the great, was the poorest, the simplest. Remember the phrase “the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Try to imitate him: Follow in his footsteps and you will be invincible.
This blog was originally published as a column in the December 2023 edition of La Voz Católica.
