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“Peace, peace: and There is no
Peace” Jeremias, 6:14
Luiz
Sérgio Solimeo
We live in apocalyptic times. Natural catastrophes
come in succession, joining the sinister cortege of wars,
terrorist attacks, and huge increases in crime. Indeed in
some countries crime has become so organized as to threaten
even national stability.1 The
family is being eroded and the youth corrupted in a hedonistic
pursuit that turns immediate pleasure into the reason for
living. As social fabric is torn apart, there is increasingly
discord in homes, society, and between nations. And, as
in Biblical times, a voice cries out: “Peace, peace:
and there is no peace.”2
There is no peace among individuals, families,
societies and nations. Even nature appears to have gone
into a state of revolt. Where will the peace for which our
hearts yearn so much, come from?
Peace, the
tranquility of order
“Peace is the tranquility of
order,”3 the appropriate disposition of things according
to their end. Therefore, there can be no peace where there
is no order, and peace will be attained only when order
is restored.
Disorder as
sin
Order comes from God as its cause and tends to Him as its
end; when man voluntarily disturbs order he not only commits
an infraction in relation to that order but an offense against
its author, that is, the Creator. This offense is called
sin.4
Therefore, the present situation of disorder
in which humanity finds itself is above all a fruit of sin,
a state of continuous and deliberate offense against God.
On the other hand, when man violates the
order established by God, he also acts against his own nature,
which is connatural with order.5
Sin as a reason
for pride
One thing is for a person to commit sin out of weakness
which he laments and tries to avoid. Such an attitude leads
to repentance and penance.6 Another matter altogether
is for a sinner to be so attached to sin as to even brag
about it and tout it as a reason for “pride”
and “dignity.”
This is the sin that most offends God,
provokes his justice the most, and cries out to heaven for
punishment.
Now then, many people in our times have
not only given themselves over to sin in an impudent way,
but gone even further in impiety. Challenging God’s
law, blaspheming and deriding all things holy has become
a sort of morbid entertainment.
Public challenge
to God
By insulting God’s supreme dignity, blasphemy is essentially
graver than violations of the Ten Commandments. It can be
perpetrated through words, deeds, actions or attitudes that
deny or mock the Supreme Divine Majesty.7
This sin is all the more grave to the degree
that it is public and notorious and more people participate
in it.
The so-called ‘marches’ to
exalt the practice of the sin of homosexuality are one of
the noisiest and most widely attended forms of public blasphemy
in our days. Since they are connected with campaigns in
favor of homosexual ‘marriage,’ they take on
clearly blasphemous overtones by mocking and defying divine
law and natural law, thus challenging the Supreme Legislator,
God.
After Rome,
Jerusalem
This challenge to God’s law was made clear in a recent
statement by WorldPride, an organization that promotes and
coordinates homosexual marches on an international level.
Explaining why it picked Jerusalem for
its 2006 demonstrations (August 6-12) after having held
them in Rome in the Holy Year of 2000, the organization
says:
Jerusalem: the Holy City …. Jerusalem
WorldPride 2006 will bring a new focus to an ancient city
through a massive demonstration of LGBT dignity, pride,
and boundary-crossing celebration. … The first WorldPride,
Rome 2000, was just that: it brought to the heart of Europe,
and indeed to the Pope’s doorstep, the message that
gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people are
– and always have been – a vital part of humanity.
Now it is time to build upon our message and to bring it
to a new and even more challenging frontier.8
Because of the present conflict involving
Israel, the march, scheduled for August 10, has been suspended;
but all other ‘commemorations’ will be held
at the Holy City.9
An invitation
to conversion
It is hopeless to try to attain peace without achieving
a profound restoration of order, of which peace is a fruit.
But that restoration is impossible if one does not consider
the present disorder as a sin, an offense to God. In other
words, one cannot attain true peace without having first
a real conversion.
Peace is a gift of God. If we want peace
for the world, the family, and society, the first thing
to do is to cease offending God.
In Fatima, the Mother of God, having shown
Hell to the three little shepherds, warned:
“You have seen hell where the souls
of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish
in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I
say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will
be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not
cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the
pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by
an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given
you by God that he is about to punish the world for its
crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the
Church and of the Holy Father.”10
Happiness
and peace of soul
Sincere conversion, abandoning sin and turning to God would
not only bring us divine grace but also true happiness,
which is peace of soul. For, “There is no peace to
the wicked, saith the Lord.”11 Only the Prince
of Peace, Our Lord Jesus Christ, can give peace: “Peace
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world
giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
nor let it be afraid.”12
Understanding
the problem first,
in order to solve it
Someone could object that what was said above is entirely
true but it is also very broad and vague and, therefore,
it provides no immediate solution to the problems mentioned.
More than providing an immediate solution
to individual, social and international conflicts, my intention
was to emphasize a facet that is hardly ever mentioned when
dealing with such conflicts. I sought to delve deeper into
the causes of these conflicts by moving from the merely
political or sociological plane to the area of philosophy
and theology so as to attain a more complete vision of the
matter.
If conversion, abandonment of sin and drawing
closer to God does not automatically bring about a quick
and effective solution to international and social problems,
at least it favors that solution. Furthermore, it is already
a beginning of the solution on the individual realm (peace
of mind) and it is also a necessary condition for an eventual
solution in the social and international arenas.
If understanding the problem is a previous
requirement to finding a solution, what I have emphasized
here is that to ignore the philosophical and theological
roots of the problem only makes it more difficult to find
a solution.
Asking for
the Mediation of the Queen of Peace
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace.13
And to both Catholic piety and the Magisterium of the Church,
His Mother, Mary Most Holy, is the Queen of Peace.
In the footsteps of the Saints who sought
her intercession with her Divine Son, let us ask her to
obtain for us interior conversion, that peace of soul that
Jesus Christ alone can give. And let us ask that peace,
a gift of God, be granted to the world through a true restoration
of order on an individual and social level.
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