World Day of Peace Reflection 2011
Dr Kieran J. O’Mahony, OSA
1 January, 2011, University Church, Dublin
Introduction
For a brief period in the mid-1990s, I had the privilege of living in Israel, at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem. A few days after my arrival, I began to wear a T-shirt with the word peace on it in several languages—shalom, salaam, Friede, pace and the like. One of the professors back at the École, a Corkman, inspecting quizzically my new attire, enquired, “Mmm peace … are you for it or against it?” But peace, as we know, is one of those things which it is difficult to be against and even more difficult to be for. What kind of peace? Peace with whom? Peace at what price? And so forth. The sleepy optimism of both shirt and wearer was given a cold awakening when, while I was still in Jerusalem, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, his cowardly murder triggered by the courageous moves he had made towards an historic accord between Israelis and Palestinians. In his gravelly voice, Rabin had been obliged to state the obvious, somewhat less than diplomatically: You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies. And that is complex.
In his World Day of Peace Message for 2011, Pope Benedict proposes the theme of religious freedom, as the path to peace. In speaking of religious freedom, the Pope is not limiting himself to Christianity, much less to Catholicism, although he does begin with the difficult conditions for Syro-Catholics in Iraq.[1] Rather, he proposes that the right to religious freedom, based on the dignity of the human person, is an essential ingredient in the creation of peace in today’s world. In his own words:
Religious freedom expresses what is unique about the human person, for it allows us to direct our personal and social life to God, in whose light the identity, meaning and purpose of the person are fully understood. To deny or arbitrarily restrict this freedom is to foster a reductive vision of the human person; to eclipse the public role of religion is to create a society which is unjust, inasmuch as it fails to take account of the true nature of the human person; it is to stifle the growth of the authentic and lasting peace of the whole human family.[2]
“No Peace Among Nations until Peace Among the Religions” was the title of a well-known talk by a former colleague of the then Prof. Ratzinger, Hans Küng.[3] However, the Pope has something more in mind in his World Day of Peace Message. It is not only a question of mutual respect and dialogue between the different religions but also a question of dialogue between religions and the secular world. The place of faith in society today has long been a consistent theme of the reflections of Benedict XVI. There is something both poignant and revealing about the Pope, in his message for the World Day of Peace 2011, having to argue for the place of religion and religions in the world today; a place, so to speak, at the high table and not simply in the privacy of one’s heart or home. Given the privileged place accorded, at least in theory, to tolerance in secular society, the plea for a place for religion at the high table brings with it a corresponding duty, namely, to let the contribution of the different faiths be seen. A bit like “peace”, it is hard to be against religious freedom and harder again to be for it. It imposes a task on believers, the task of showing that their contribution to the construction of civil society is substantial and significant, and communicable beyond the specifics of the particular faith. As we know from history and the present state of the world, faiths of different sorts have within them the potential to feed violence and the potential to heal antagonism. People of faith, if they are to “earn” their place at the high table, as of right, have also the responsibility to speak to civil society about peace, specifically and constructively from the standpoint of each faith family.
For Christians, this means asking is there anything special about the Christian teaching on peace? Does it offer any distinctive perspectives?
(a) Šālôm
As often in Christian reflection, we need to go back to our Jewish roots to hear the rich character of shalom, peace. An example may introduce the range of meanings. When Jacob, in the Genesis narrative, flees his brother, Esau, and arrives at the place of his uncle Laban, he enquires, hašalôm lô, Is it well with him?[4] This gives us an intimation that the word shalom or peace means markedly more than simply the absence of violence, as noted already by Paul VI in Populorum Progressio.[5] It does entail, of course, cessation of violence, but the fundamental resonance of the word is “wholeness”, being complete. As such, in the Bible, shalom also encompasses physical wellbeing and fertility (in family and flocks), prosperity and security (in production and society). We may note that peace in the Bible is not primarily the experience of inner tranquillity, as in our “peace of mind”, but rather a quality of relationship. Specifically, peace is a quality of relationships one finds and one constructs with others. (Psalm 122, to which I will return, is perhaps the most appealing and accessible account of peace in the Hebrew Bible.[6]) In a word, peace, shalom in the Hebrew Bible, salaam in the Islamic world, is a whole work of justice and respect and even a work of truth, assuring not simply the absence of war but the positive conditions so that people and peoples may flourish. In today’s world, while we have to be careful not to expand each concept beyond what it denotes, such peace would comprise, for example, economic and educational opportunities as well as the more obvious absence of violence.
(b) Eirēnē
When we take up the Christian New Testament, a little noticed but striking feature of that collection of documents is that the root word peace, eirēnē, occurs in all of them (one hundred times in all), with the single exception of the first letter of St John. The word enjoys a particular frequency in the writings of Luke and Paul. Again, the range of meanings is instructive. As in the Hebrew Bible, peace is a quality of blessing and wholeness, spiritual, physical and social. Building on that, New Testament peace is part of the vision of the Kingdom of God, including work for justice; it implies a love of neighbour, which commits oneself to overcome evil with the positive construction of good. It is part of God’s offer of salvation in Christ, leading to a new reconciling spirit under God’s grace. And finally, peace is emphatically the gift of the risen Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. In the same Gospel, there is a verse which signals that Christian peace, in reality, goes beyond the social, political and economic, in the words, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives (John 14:27). This is because, for Christians, Christ himself is our peace (Ephesians 2:4).
Nevertheless, as the Christmas proclamation makes clear, peace is wider than faith communities and in fact is a worldwide project of God and for the believer in God. In the message to the shepherds, we hear: But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. … And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!” (Luke 2:10–14). This peace in Luke’s gospel is in conscious contrast to the enforced peace of Augustus, the familiar Pax Romana. The latter reminds us that there can also be false peace, constructed on unstable foundations, such as injustice and the privileging of the few. The Christmas proclamation of peace brings faith beyond the “privacy” of the faith community into engagement with the “real world” of politics. Believers are not simply motivated by faith to work for peace, they have a comprehensive vision of peace, which makes their contribution to the public debate, it is to be hoped, original, substantial and committed.
(c) Psalm 122
I mentioned earlier Psalm 122, which opens with the words, I rejoiced when I heard them say. It is a pilgrimage psalm, to be prayed for the “going up” to Jerusalem. This psalm is a carefully worked poem and, like any good poetry, it repays close reading. For example, it begins in the first person singular, I rejoiced. At the end of the pilgrimage, however, the pilgrim has undergone a transformation: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good (Psalm 122:6–9). In Hebrew, the words “you” and “your” re-echo at the end of each line of the last strophe. The pilgrimage has brought about a bonding, a coming together, heralded in the move from the singular to the plural. It implies not only the physical journey but also a spiritual journey of personal transformation. We may put it somewhat startlingly like this: from a biblical viewpoint, there is no such thing as peace in the abstract. Instead, there are people who are at peace and there are people who make peace. The project of peace resides in the desire to make peace, which in turn implies a conversion, a metanoia or change of heart, a conversion away from destructive relationships and a conversion towards what builds up—not simply “fixes up”—the whole person in a society viewed as a whole.
Conclusion
So, as we come together in God’s presence to pray for peace, we can reflect on the vision of peace offered by the Jewish and Christian traditions, a teaching which transcends the mere absence of violence and holds up a vision of the whole person and society viewed as an integral reality. And as we pray, we could be inspired by the words of Psalm 122: that is to say, we could pray not simply for peace but that we may become bearers and builders of peace, peacemakers, and may know in our hearts that inner and costly conversion to peace which alone makes it possible. This is the very invitation made by the Pope in his closing reflection:
Peace is a gift of God and at the same time a task which is never fully completed. A society reconciled with God is closer to peace, which is not the mere absence of war or the result of military or economic supremacy, much less deceptive ploys or clever manipulation. Rather, peace is the result of a process of purification and of cultural, moral and spiritual elevation involving each individual and people, a process in which human dignity is fully respected. I invite all those who wish to be peacemakers, especially the young, to heed the voice speaking within their hearts and thus to find in God the stable point of reference for attaining authentic freedom, the inexhaustible force which can give the world a new direction and spirit, and overcome the mistakes of the past.[7]
In this place of prayer, we make our own the prayer, which closes the letter to the Hebrews:
Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20–21)
Dr Kieran J. O’Mahony, OSA, is Academic Director of Biblical Studies for the Diocese of Dublin and is Associate Professor at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy (www.milltown-institute.ie). Kieran is the author of What the Bible Says about the Stranger (22009) and is closely involved in adult faith formation (www.wordonweb.org). An Augustinian friar, he lives in Orlagh Retreat Centre, a ministry of the Order of St Augustine in Ireland (www.orlagh.ie).
[1] Benedict XVI, Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace (2011) §1.
[2] Idem.
[3] Given at the University of California, San Diego in 1991.
[4] Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where do you come from?” They said, “We are from Haran.” He said to them, “Do you know Laban son of Nahor?” They said, “We do.” He said to them, “Is it well with him?” “Yes,” they replied, “and here is his daughter Rachel, coming with the sheep.” (Genesis 29:4–7)
[5] When we fight poverty and oppose the unfair conditions of the present, we are not just promoting human wellbeing; we are also furthering man’s spiritual and moral development, and hence we are benefiting the whole human race. For peace is not simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day toward the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among men. Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (1967) §76.
[6] A Song of Ascents. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good (Psalms 122).
[7] Benedict XVI, Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace (2011) §15.
