CV NEWS FEED // Jesus offers the only way to achieve true peace — not just “truces and compromises” — in a world marked by violence and conflict, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem said this week.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa’s Jan. 1 homily for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, included a message of hope to a community that has been afflicted by unrest and suffering for over a year, as the war between Hamas and Israel continues.
Turning to Jesus and praying for peace — and not just talking about it — is essential today, the Cardinal said on the solemnity, which Pope Paul VI established as the World Day of Peace in 1967.
“Without looking upwards, without accepting the gift that God has given to humanity, Jesus Christ, true God and true man, we will hardly have the means to interpret these difficult times,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said. “We will hardly be able to keep the doors of our hearts open to the sincere desire for peace and believe in its realization. Instead, we would be crushed by the burden of mistrust and resignation.”
Real peace can only be accomplished through finding Jesus Christ, listening to His word, and becoming His disciples, the Cardinal said.
The shepherds in the Gospel of Luke give a strong example of what action is needed to achieve peace. They hastened to Bethlehem after hearing the announcement of Jesus’ birth, the Cardinal said, “found the child and, full of joy, they recognized in Jesus the gift of God and thus received that peace.”
Noting the shepherds’ example, Cardinal Pizzaballa explained that it is crucial to not only seek and know Jesus, but also to recognize Him and His saving way.
“Finding Jesus means recognizing that the gift He is to us must be transformed into forgiveness for our brothers and sisters,” the Cardinal said. “Finding Jesus means walking in His way, taking up His cross, that is, His way of acting and loving.”
During the homily he also urged for personal examination of one’s own readiness to seek out peace, listen to it, and work toward it, rather than wait for others to accomplish it. Peace is given from God, he said, but it also takes perseverance and letting go of selfishness.
“Without this willingness to become disciples of Christ, we may be capable of truces and compromises, but we will not experience true peace,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said. “This only comes from the cross, which is not a willingness to pain and death, but a decision to give oneself to the end, in the sure hope of the fruitfulness of Easter.”
“I believe this is the truest contribution we Christians can and must make to the cause of peace: to remind everyone that peace will never simply be the result of human agreements,” he continued.
Peace can only come from an increase in love, the Cardinal said, through Jesus.
“So may the Child of Bethlehem, together with the Virgin, the Mother of God and our Mother, continue to kindle in each of us, in our ecclesial community, that love which alone can give us the strength and courage to begin anew,” he concluded, “to listen to peace, to recognize it in the person of Jesus and to realize it again and again, without ever growing weary, here, in our community and in our civil society.”