Peace. Inner peace. Deep peace. The peace that passes all understanding.
May I suggest that this could be the message we need to hear now?
I began to compose and send out these Reflections in April 2020, during the pandemic shutdown. By October, when I first wrote on the readings for this Sunday, most of the world was sunk deep in the new challenges, and the sheer fear, posed by a worldwide pandemic with no end in sight. A cloud of foreboding hovered over every personal encounter, every excursion outside the home. Will I get sick this time? Will I carry the virus to someone more vulnerable? Can I work? How can children’s schooling continue online? How can anything?
Maybe we need a word of hope now, for different reasons.
The Second Reading for this Sunday varies between the Roman Missal and the Revised Common Lectionary. Though both are taken from the fourth chapter of Philippians, the RM uses Phil 4: 12-14 and 19-20, which dovetails neatly with the banquet image presented in the Hebrew Bible and Gospel readings for today. But the RCL gives us the visionary and breathtaking promise of the peace of God in verses 1-9.
Paul is writing his letter to the Philippians from prison. It’s pretty amazing that he can concentrate at all under the circumstances, never mind caring deeply about a division within this community and lovingly trying to strengthen them. He first implores two women leaders of the community, Euodia and Syntyche, to reconcile their differences. He appeals to other co-workers to support them.
Then comes the part that leaps out at us from Paul’s difficult, life-threatening and fear-inducing circumstances at that moment:
Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I say, Rejoice!
Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Our God is near.
Do not worry about anything,
But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving,
Let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding,
Will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
It can be hard to imagine a “peace that passes all understanding.” We might perceive this peace in passing, perhaps in prayer, or unexpectedly in daily life.
I think there are times and circumstances when we have to work at it, when peace won’t just float over us like a fluffy blanket. We’re immersed in global challenges with no assurance that the worsening climate crisis, economic exploitation and greed, the sharp increase in a culture of racism, misogyny and contempt for refugees and migrants, and power surrendered freely to autocrats who casually violate the rule of law, will somehow sort itself out.
Ultimately what we do, how we think, speak and act, and how we vote, needs to come from a place of inner stability, clearsightedness and courage. This is no easy task in a time when AI can subtly alter our perceptions and bias our judgement without our awareness.
Once, many years ago, I published a short letter in the local diocesan newspaper. At the time I was an active member of Pax Christi, and I pointed out that “pacifism” does not mean a “passivity,” that several letter writers had attacked. The making of peace is active, not passive. It’s not compliance with evil.
We often speak easily of “making peace,” as Euodia and Syntyche probably did, as if it’s a task we can accomplish with good will and a bit of work. Inner peace and the strength it undergirds is something else. It’s a gift, not a task. But we can set up the preconditions. Hope. Trust. Working for justice however and whenever the opportunity presents itself. Not to forget faith.
© Susan K. Roll
*Partly taken from the Reflection of October 11, 2020.
Susan Roll retired from the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, in 2018, where she served as Director of the Sophia Research Centre. Her research and publications are centred in the fields of liturgy, sacraments, and feminist theology. She holds a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, and has been involved with international academic societies in liturgy and theology, as well as university chaplaincy, Indigenous ministry and church reform projects.
