Is There Evidence for Christ’s Peace?

by Michael Shackleton · June 5, 2017

As someone who feels depressed, can you give me hope? Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you” (Jn 14:27). What is this peace that the world does not give? Where’s the evidence? Johanna

The words you quote from John 14 carry on as follows: “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

So, the first thing to understand is that Christ’s peace is his gift to our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22). It is a serenity in the firm confidence that God’s will for us is to keep us in his loving care, because we are destined to be at peace with him forever.

But if that were all, then we would be on our own, not affected by the people around us.

We know that we are not on our own and real peace in the world around us is a minefield of setbacks that continually destroy our notion of a world of peace among all peoples.

In earlier centuries peace referred to the absence of war in Christian Europe where the ideal was for neighbouring rulers and their subjects to demonstrate Christian charity to one another.

In recent times the Church realises that its message of peace has to be adapted to each stage of history unfolding around it. There is a longing for peace as we confront a humanity now in a position to destroy itself.

Christ’s call for peace on earth is a fragile warning that must be heeded by every world leader and every single one of us in our own lives and responsibilities.

I think that Pope St John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical Pacem in terris (Peace on earth) put it bluntly in its opening words: “Peace on earth, which man throughout the ages has so longed for and sought after, can never be established, never guaranteed, except by the diligent observance of the divinely established order.”

I advise you to read this encyclical. It is so logical and clear as it spells out the contrast between the disordered works of individuals and nations and the perfect order God has established in the universe.

The evidence of the non-worldly gift of peace that Christ gives us is to be found in our hearts and our inborn desire for peace, and in the Church’s constant diplomatic efforts to broker peace and justice among nations, Christians and others.

It is so easy to become depressed as we see the hope for peace on earth almost fading away completely, but we must stand firm in our faith in Christ. And our initial step is to hold on to this: “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid”. From November 2016