Why are people afraid of peace?

[blessedstar]

Father Doug of our Parish, bless his heart, recently asked us to consider the Lords Prayer ~

We raise our hands, and hold the hands of our (often a stranger) neighbors and recite the prayer every Sunday, but do we really MEAN it when we say it? REALLY?? I guess you could say that Father Doug challenged us to live the prayer that we so easily utter. But, in the manner of the subject of this thread, PEACE beckons when we live that prayer.

Do we truly mean it when we say “THY WILL BE DONE?” because do we really want God’s will, or are we more comfortable with what WE WANT? God’s will may not be our own will, but the path to peace often involves conforming our will to God’s.

Do we truly mean it when we say that we “FORGIVE THOSE AS THEY TRESPASS AGAINST US”? Or do we just want our own sins forgiven?

For me, peace, total peace, total love, has occurred in the back of the church sanctuary, praying for everyone else in the building. I didn’t want to say this to anyone, for fear that it sounds like I am boasting, but now I will say it, if only to give others an idea about something they can do that is helpful. The world is full of self-interest and self-aggrandisement, often nauseatingly so. Pray for others, take the focus off yourself. Do it for the simple joy of doing it. Trust me, it will be effective.

Love, Melanie

Melanie, if God has given you a light you must share it with others, that is let it shine through you as if you are made only of glass, brittle and weak but what shines through you is of such strength and delicacy that the weak glass you are is not broken by it but strengthened and in turn you strengthen others in the faith because of the light God has given you.

Humility is not about not speaking the truth. To not speak the truth is false humility, don’t fall into that trap of the silliness of false piety, you are far from that and only say these words you do because you desire to point to Jesus because you love Him and that is right to do rather than point to one’s self. But don’t be afraid to say with Our Blessed Virgin and Mother Mary…

‘God has done great things for me’

This does not point to you, it always points to God.

In my prayers and I also thank God for you.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Hi BlessedStar, Thank you for your kind words. I will do my best.

Many things have happened to me in my life which have been, some might say, miraculous. Wherever or whatever, I can only say many things have come and I did not know where they came from. Sometimes it has been as simple as a song I wrote and people would be so amazed by it and I just tell them that I didn’t write it, I only wrote it down. It came from somewhere else. Because that was the truth.

But to me, telling that story, even though it is the truth, sounds like boasting and that is not what I want to do. I want to encourage people to seek peace through prayer for others and through service to others. There are so many ways to do that, and everyone can do it if they try. And you will gain peace, at least a glimmer of peace. And the more you practice peace, the more peace you will achieve.

It took me nearly 60 years to incorporate this truth into my life. Work harder when you are younger and you will get there sooner. End of story.

Love,
Melanie

 

[blessedstar]

Hi BlessedStar, Thank you for your kind words. I will do my best.

Many things have happened to me in my life which have been, some might say, miraculous. Wherever or whatever, I can only say many things have come and I did not know where they came from. Sometimes it has been as simple as a song I wrote and people would be so amazed by it and I just tell them that I didn’t write it, I only wrote it down. It came from somewhere else. Because that was the truth.

But to me, telling that story, even though it is the truth, sounds like boasting and that is not what I want to do. I want to encourage people to seek peace through prayer for others and through service to others. There are so many ways to do that, and everyone can do it if they try. And you will gain peace, at least a glimmer of peace. And the more you practice peace, the more peace you will achieve.

It took me nearly 60 years to incorporate this truth into my life. Work harder when you are younger and you will get there sooner. End of story.

Love,
Melanie

If you intended to boast then that would be a boast.

It’s clear that you do not intend to boast. Many are the tricks of the evil one to stop a good work from coming to fruition.

The fruits of Peace are to know your ‘self’, that is only when a soul resides in the Peace of Christ can it do so by union and union can only come about by purgation and illumination.

I am thinking that you already have a spiritual director. Next time you meet with them discuss this uneasiness you feel about ‘boasting’ because how you are interpreting it is not how St Paul meant it. St Paul meant boasting of oneself which is not where you seem to be coming from at all. You seem to know that you have only come thus far because of God’s grace and therefore to live in this Peace of Christ you obviously know and experience.

Melanie you boast of Christ and this is what St Paul is saying.

Personally for me, I will boast all day long of Christ Jesus, what He has done for me by the Suffering of His Passion and Cross and the Peace and great blessings He has wrought for mankind. I will boast with my life and with my actions, I will rise in the morning and boast to the quietness of early day, I will go about the day and boast of Him in my life in all I do and when I sleep at night my last boast will be that I am happy to pass from this world into the next in Him and offer to Him the prayer of my life and all to the glory of Him who I boast of.

Jesus is our boast because we no longer live, but He lives in us and so in Him we are transformed.

I will pray for you and your spiritual director.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Thank you for your prayers.

Love, Melanie

 

[ncjohn]

Many things have happened to me in my life which have been, some might say, miraculous. Wherever or whatever, I can only say many things have come and I did not know where they came from. Sometimes it has been as simple as a song I wrote and people would be so amazed by it and I just tell them that I didn’t write it, I only wrote it down. It came from somewhere else. Because that was the truth.

But to me, telling that story, even though it is the truth, sounds like boasting and that is not what I want to do.

Hi Melanie,

I have to agree with blessedstar here that what you are doing is definitely not boasting. When those things happen to me, especially reactions to a post or a PM I might have sent, I cannot help but say “thanks but that was nothing more than a matter of me getting myself out of the way so God could use my keyboard to send you that message.”

When we are blessed to recognize being “used” as an instrument of God’s peace–to put it in Francis’s language–I don’t think we should even try to think about keeping that to ourselves. That is not boasting at all, but proclaiming the awesome love of our God to the world. “For it is in giving of ourselves that we receive.”

“And in dying [to ourselves] that we’re born to eternal life.”

 

[chevalier]

Sometimes people are afraid of those at peace because they remind them of their own internal torments. At other instances, they won’t to disturb that peace. It may be Satan’s work at times, as well, I guess.

As for peacemaking, consider two absolutist views being tampered with by a relativist who wants to reconcile two opposing absolutes. So long as dialogue is going on and there’s more mutual discovery and respect, that’s great. But the moment the relativist starts taking away weight from each of the absolutists’ positions so that, in his mind, they could reconcile, they will probably unite against him without reconciling their position, because they will feel more threatened by him than by each other.

Let’s say a Catholic debates with a Protestant on the nature of something. Then chimes in some happy secularist who says it doesn’t really matter. Guess who gets kicked out first?

There are two kinds of peace: peace from above and peace from the lows. Peace from above is arbitrary. It lasts as long as its power base or the authority of the peacemaker. Peace from the lows is as good as the free will and full knowledge of those who make it. This is, for example, why mediators stay away from decision-making.

Of course, this does not mean that the peacemaker won’t be attacked by both sides for selfish reasons, such as that both sides want to fight and grab the prize by force, not by talking. Sometimes the reasons don’t really matter but both sides benefit in their minds from the conflict going on, then the peacemaker will face more or less united opposition from both sides. This comes from the fact that both sides find their chosen way of operation to be judged wrong and, well, threatened.

As a final word, I think you’re touching on two different things: peacemaking and being at peace internally. It’s two different matters.