Peace

A number of years ago they added a new feature to our email system at work.

You could specify some standard text.

And the system would automatically add that text at the end of each message.

We all take that for granted now, but it was new back then.

So we all added our name, phone number, maybe our address.

To save even a few more keystrokes we could also include a standard complimentary close.

(If formal letter writing wasn’t part of your elementary school curriculum,

The complimentary close is that message, those few closing words, we put before our name.

Like: Sincerely, or Yours Truly.)

We all tried to find a standard close that would be appropriate for most all messages.

Messages to bosses and staff, friends, colleagues and strangers.

Messages of good news and bad, agreement and disagreement.

I started using Peace.

Over the years, I got quite a few responses that closed with words like:

Yeah Man, Peace!  Or a more sedate Peace to You Too.

Only a few people ever asked what I really meant by closing my message that way.

But if they asked, I told them.

In our Gospel today, Jesus gives his Last Supper farewell.

And he says: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.

He indicates that he’s giving not just any peace, but a special peace.

Something more than just a temporary worldly peace—His peace.

What’s special about his peace?

It’s not just an absence of war or conflict.

It’s not a fragile condition that will last only temporarily.

It’s a comfort that grows from a deep-seated, abiding, confidence and trust in God.

It’s a knowledge that even when all is not well in this world,

We can count on God to make it well in the end.

Jesus left that peace to his disciples—to us.

How can we claim it?

St Paul gives us some guidance in his letter to the Phillipians.
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

If you do this, you will experience God’s peace,

which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand.

His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:6-7 (NLT)).

Paul makes it sound pretty simple.

But we know that kind of peace can be elusive; for many of us, it comes and goes.

Some people may never experience that peace in this life.

But that’s the peace we hear about here at Mass.

The peace we offer each other after the Lord’s Prayer.

The peace we might wish for all our email recipients.

And not only for them.

But for ourselves.

And for everyone.

Tuesday of 5th Week of Easter

Jn 14:27-31                                    Read this Scripture @usccb.org