By Karla Luke
“Peace be with you,” are the first words our resurrected Lord spoke to the fearful Apostles hiding in the Upper Room on that first day of the week. Peace. Assuredly, peace must have been the last thought on their minds after all of the terrifying events they witnessed in the final days of Jesus’ human life on Earth. Their friend and brother, betrayed, denied, falsely accused, tortured and murdered was now standing before them with an offer of peace. What a contrast!
When we think of peace, we generally think the absence of conflict or war; however, in the scriptural sense, peace is much more. When we possess true peace, we enjoy wholeness, harmony and right relationship with God, others and self. Peace, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, is a gift from God to us that is to be shared with all. Jesus, our brother, the Prince of Peace, came to unite heaven and earth and to show, by His selfless and loving example, how to be in right relationship with God and others. In The Joy of the Gospel – Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis suggests that in order to achieve peace we must become a people.
People in every nation enhance the social dimension of their lives by acting as committed and responsible citizens, not as a mob swayed by the powers that be. Let us not forget that “responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.” Yet becoming a people demands something more. It is an ongoing process in which every new generation must take part: a slow and arduous effort calling for a desire for integration and a willingness to achieve this through the growth of a peaceful and multifaceted culture of encounter. (220 Evangelii Gaudium)
Pope Francis proposes that we can build a people of peace by being attentive to four specific areas: time, unity, reality and wholeness.
Time is greater than space – Today much emphasis is placed on immediate results. Let’s face it, we live in an instant gratification society. The power goes to the person that makes it happen the fastest! Pope Francis tells us that we must focus more on the processes that develop societies and help move people more toward full and meaningful lives under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and less on outcomes that benefit a few.
Unity prevails over conflict – Conflicts exist everywhere, in families, societies and among nations. People choose to address conflicts either by ignoring them, embracing them or facing them head on. It is the latter, recommended by Pope Francis, that has the greatest impact on building peace. In facing conflict we endeavor to go beyond the surface of the issue and establish meaningful dialogue affording dignity to all involved in hopes of coming to a deeper understanding of one another.
Realities are more important than ideas – We consistently struggle with trying to connect ideas to realities. In some ways we bury reality in unattainable objectives and fundamentalism. While it is good to have high aspirations, we must not lose sight of the present condition. While Jesus’ incarnation is the reality of the Word made flesh, it illustrates that reality is necessary to evangelization. The history of our salvation is the reality and we must continue act in that same justice and charity to bring to life the word of Matthew’s Gospel, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”
The whole is greater than the part – There exists a relationship between the whole and the part: namely, we must be attentive to the worldly condition as well as our own local condition. Working for peace and justice in own community can have an exponential effect on other communities thereby assuring everyone, even the poor, of their own rightful place in society. We seek to maintain our own God-given individuality while pursuing the common good.
So as Catholic Christians when we come to that part of the Liturgy that invites us to share the gift of peace, let us remember that we are truly expressing the desire for wholeness, harmony and right relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Peace be with you!
(Karla Luke works in the Office of Education. She is writing reflections on Pope Francis’ Joy of the Gospel all year.)

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle
Bishop Joseph Kopacz has begun his annual trek to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation with young people and their families around the diocese. If you are the parent, Godparent, grandparent, auntie, uncle or close friend of one of these confirmandi, you might want to clip this article and place it in their Confirmation card along with whatever encouraging words you may wish to share. Here goes…
Dear Young People: Confirmation is not Catholic graduation. You are not, by far, finished developing, learning and growing as a Catholic Christian. You, dear one, are just beginning your journey of faith as an adult in the church. As the years pass and you grow and mature in your life, so too will your faith.
Up until confirmation you had a team of adults to help you grow in your faith including: your parents (as first catechists), your priest and other religious, your parish family and your Catholic family. Your team members did their level best to help teach you about the faith, inspire you to follow the example of Jesus, and enkindle in you a love for God. In confirmation you complete the sacraments of initiation that were first begun with your Baptism.
Let’s talk about that word “initiation” for a minute. If you plan on joining a fraternity of sorority at college you become a full member after you have gone through a period on initiation. Civic and religious organizations have initiations too. It is a way of setting aside time to learn about the very organization you intend to join.
Who was the founder? What are the requirements to remain a member in good standing? What is the purpose of the organization? Are there dues? What purpose does the organization serve? Is it philanthropic? Educational? Social? Once you have learned about the history, structure and function of the organization during initiation one can make an assessment as to whether or not the organization fits your needs.
Confirmation is in many ways the same except our period of initiation lasts from the time you are Baptized until the time you are Confirmed. All that time in between is your Catholic initiation. During your Catholic initiation you learn about our founder, Jesus Christ; learn about what it means to be a fully functioning member of the Church; and, discover the rich gift of the Sacramental life of the Church.
Along the way you experience other rites of initiation such as First Eucharist and penance. These are sacramental building blocks that help you develop as a person of faith and as a practicing Catholic.
By your consent in being confirmed, you are completing what your parents began for you in baptism. You are telling the church that you are ready to fully participate in the life of the church as an adult. Congratulations, you are now in the position to own your faith. You are primarily responsible for your continued spiritual development. Fear not, you will not have to undertake this responsibility alone. In your journey of faith there will be many people who walk with you, challenge you and encourage you to keep focused on God’s will and his ways.
And remember, just as it took years for you to complete the initiation phase of your spiritual development it will take many years to grow into your faith as an adult. Keep in mind that God will meet along the way and love you right where you are. May you always walk with confidence of his great love for you.
(Fran Lavelle is Director of the Department of Faith Formation.)

Reflections on life
By Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD
“Why me?” is the oft-repeated query when dark, painful times descend upon us hapless human beings. “What have I done to deserve this?” is another familiar way of asking the same question. One can say that there are three stages of belief in God, of which the third is often the most difficult for perhaps most people.
Blaise Pascal’s wager tackles the first stage of belief in God. In summary of a lengthy philosophical dissertation, the wager states:
1. If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain.
2. If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to live in hell forever: thus an infinite loss.
3. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus a finite loss.
4. If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus a finite gain.
Criticisms of the wager strike me as being pedantic and cerebral instead of simple and down-to-earth. Critics object that the wager presupposes many things such as an immortal soul and a Judaeo/Christian-based notion of God that affirms the faith of believers rather than converts non-believers, since it posits one God to believe in, thereby excluding another god or gods that people may believe in. But Pascal was not militating for Christian belief, but rather for the raw belief in God that one living in the totally isolated world of an undiscovered jungle might have.
Therefore, even though Pascal speaks of God in the singular, it seems that he does not want his wager to exclude polytheists, those who believe in multiple gods. In fact, the Church includes polytheists and everyone else in its statement on the will of God that all people be saved, “Facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam.”
Translated roughly in the plural, “God does not deny grace to those who do what they are capable of doing.” That means, “those who follow the light of reason.”
Thus, aborigines in the deepest jungles, who have had no contact with any people, the Bible or any knowledge beyond the stone age, will be saved – given the grace of God – if they believe and do what is in their understanding to believe and do, even if that understanding is deficient as to the true nature of God. The other way of saying it is that God does not condemn us because of invincible ignorance; that is, ignorance for which we are not responsible and cannot do anything about. The stipulation is that those aborigines are willing to accept whatever God wants.
“Whatever God wants” makes everything implicit in the generic belief in God that knows no details about God or religion. An aborigine or anyone who knows nothing about all the knowledge, science, writings and other media and marvels of the modern world may have a somewhat fuzzy idea of a Supreme Being or may find deities in the sun, moon, oceans, mountains or universe. Nonetheless, if such a person submits herself/himself to the will of the Creator, everything falls into place.
Thus, baptism, a condition sine qua non of salvation, is included in the will of the Creator embraced by the generic believer. Such baptism is known as baptism of desire. Ditto for the implicit acceptance of Jesus Christ, without whom there is no salvation. Implicit in accepting what God wants is, “If I but knew Jesus, I would embrace him and all his teachings.” The same goes for acceptance of God’s Church.
So, unconditional belief in God and the acceptance of God’s will cover all our spiritual needs, no matter how little we have heard or read about them. Still, it is not enough to believe in God, Jesus and their Holy Spirit. James 2:19 warns us, “You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.”
It is the third part of faith that is so difficult, because it challenges us and our petty agendas, faults, sins, doubts, pains, grief, deprivations, disappointments and failures. Enter Thomas, Didymus, the one of little faith, who had to see and touch the nail prints in the hands and Jesus and the lance scar in his side. He was not unlike Peter, who denied Jesus thrice, and all the other apostles who fled before the ferocity of the Roman soldiers on Good Friday. (John managed to sneak back later.)
Together with the other apostles – and everyone else except the three steadfast Marys – Thomas was numb when confronted with the reality that Jesus had risen from the dead. It had to be a ghost, not flesh and blood! Actually, they were in a tailspin, cowering for fear of the Jews until the rending event of Pentecost.
Resurrection through Jesus – that final prerequisite of faith and salvation – will carry us through all doubt, fear, anxiety, pain, grief, depression and failure.
(Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD, is pastor of Our Mother of Mercy Parish in Fort Worth, Texas. He has written “Reflections on Life since 1969.)