That’s right. Whatever be the situation and condition of our life, we can still manage to have peace. Why? Because Christ himself reassured us of it. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” he said. (Jn 14,27)
If we truly have faith in Christ, we know that those words are no mere bluff. They are not fake news as are common nowadays. Those words enjoy eternal veracity. It’s important that we believe them fully since we need them as we go through our unavoidable challenges, trials, difficulties, etc., in life.
The peace that Christ gives us is one that the world cannot give, just as what he said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (Jn 14,27)
Of course, with that Christ-given peace comes joy also. The two always go together. They cannot be separated, although their expressions may not tally with the worldly standards of joy and peace.
The joy and peace that comes from Christ is first of all a grace from God and is always a fruit of a continuing spiritual battle to keep God’s love burning in us. It’s a joy and peace that is compatible with the cross, with all forms of suffering. It is not afraid of suffering which also has an important role to play in our life and in the redemption of mankind.
It’s a joy and peace that comes as a consequence of faith and a growing identification with Christ who bore all the sins of men and the evils of this world and conquered them with his resurrection. In short, it’s a joy and peace that expresses guaranteed victory even if at the moment we are still fighting and suffering. It’s an all-weather kind of joy and peace.
We need to examine ourselves to see if we have such joy and peace. It is actually offered to us for free. It’s all there for the taking. We just have to find a way of having and keeping it.
And one important way of doing so is to learn to pray, since prayer is our basic way of connecting with God that hopefully would lead us to a growing identification with him as we are meant to be. Remember that we are God’s image and likeness. With God’s grace we are supposed to do our part, free beings as we are, in realizing this divine plan for us.
We should never depart from this peace of Christ. All our efforts to come up with an estimation of peace for our personal health or for social, economic or political well-being, should always be inspired by this peace Christ gives us. It cannot be any other way.
Christ is the prince of peace. He knows how to tackle any and all causes of trouble, conflict and war. He meets them head-on, not escaping from them, and in fact converts these causes of evil and war into paths to goodness and human redemption.
We know that Christ warned us about this intriguing figure of the “ruler of the world” who will surely give us trouble. (cfr Jn 14,30) But he said: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16,33)*
