Peace By Peace
Black Rock Mountain, southeast Ireland [Wikipedia]
St Columban (c.543 – 23 November 615) is believed to have been born near here.
Sweet joys of life
May Christ, the Ruler of the Universe,
the only Son of the All-powerful,
grant you all the sweet joys of life,
who, without end, governs all things,
in the name of his Father. Amen.
– Prayers and Sayings of St Columban, Columban Martyrs of Malate, 1995
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Léon Bloy in 1887 [Wikipedia]
The worst evil is not to commit crimes, but to have failed to do the good one might have done.
– Léon Bloy, Pilgrim of the Absolute (1846 – 1917)
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Janusz Korcsak Monument, Warsaw [Wikipedia]
Allow children to make mistakes and to joyfully strive for improvement. Children love laughter, running about, and playing tricks. If your own life is like a graveyard to you, leave children free to see it as a pasture. If you witness a child’s happiness in all its intensity, then you cannot fail to notice that the highest level of joy results from having overcome some obstacle – from a goal attained or a mystery solved.
– Janusz Korczak (1878 – 1942) [Source]
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St Nicholas Altarpiece (central panel), Master of the Legend of St Lucy, 1486-03
Groeninge Museum, Bruges/Brugge, Belgium [Web Gallery of Art]
The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic Gods giving, by grace, through faith, and this is not of ourselves.
– St Nicholas of Myra (15 March 270 – 6 December 343)
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The True Peace
Black Elk (1863 – 1950) was baptized as a Catholic in 1904 after the death of his first wife, Katie War Bonnet, a Catholic. He took the name ‘Nicholas’, after St Nicholas of Myra (above) as his baptismal name. He also became a catechist.
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Taka (the Great Spirit), and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men. [Source]
– Black Elk - Oglala Sioux
Black Elk, daughter Lucy Black Elk, and second wife Anna Brings White, South Dakota, c. 1910 [Wikipedia]
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Jean Vanier (R) with John Smeltzer, L’Arche Daybreak, Toronto 2009 [Wikipedia]
For peace, people must meet across differences. I say to meet people, not just to send them money and offer better professionals. All need to change. Fear must be changed into openness. Those on the rich side need to change and open their hearts to those on the other side. Those on the needy side also need to change; from anger, anguish, depression and a sense of being victims of a society, they must become agents of hope and of love . . . It is only as we meet and share together person to person, eye to eye, and heart to heart that we discover what it means to be human and to discover the joy of being together, working together towards a common mission of peace and unity. It is only moving from winning and loneliness to collaboration, and from hostility to seeing enemies as friends, that we discover the real meaning of peace.
– Jean Vanier [Source]
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Scroll of the Book of Isaiah [Wikipedia]
O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.
– Isaiah 26:12
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