On Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 21, the world ob­served In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Peace on the theme “Act Now for a Peace­ful World.” UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res re­minds us that “around the world, lives are be­ing ripped apart, child­hoods ex­tin­guished, and ba­sic hu­man dig­ni­ty dis­card­ed, amidst the cru­el­ty and degra­da­tions of war.”

Our world is in a sor­ry state. Our re­sponse to this ur­gent call to act for a peace­ful world must lead us, first of all, to search our hearts to de­ter­mine whether or not peace lives in our hearts. The au­thor Et­ty Hille­sum right­ly said: “Ul­ti­mate­ly, we have just one moral du­ty: to re­claim large ar­eas of peace in our­selves, more and more peace, and to re­flect it to­ward oth­ers. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will al­so be in our trou­bled world.”

Chris­tians will re­mem­ber Je­sus’ words in the Beat­i­tudes. Dur­ing His Ser­mon on the Mount, Je­sus said: “Blessed are the peace­mak­ers, be­cause they will be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). And Psalm 34:14 urges us to “Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pur­sue it.”

We all yearn for the day when our lead­ers will join the mass­es who are ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing peace, step by step, day by day.

When a world leader’s words: “I hate my op­po­nents and I don’t want the best for them” sent rip­ples around the world re­cent­ly, I re­called Deep­ak Chopra’s wise ad­vice in his ar­ti­cle: A Peace Pro­pos­al to World Lead­ers. In­ter alia, he said: “We seem to be crea­tures of vi­o­lence...We are plant­i­ng the seeds of ei­ther joy or sor­row for our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. In mak­ing the choice for peace, we make a choice to ex­pand fu­ture pos­si­bil­i­ties that every day of con­flict un­der­mines ...”

As I was writ­ing this opin­ion piece, my friend, Ansel Wong CBE, sent me a copy of Kei­th Magee’s ar­ti­cle in the UK Guardian. Magee is a the­olo­gian and au­thor. He says:

“Mar­tin Luther King Jr warned: “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

Ha­tred, he knew, cor­rodes the hater as much as the hat­ed. Love, by con­trast, is the on­ly force ca­pa­ble of trans­form­ing both. This is not ab­stract phi­los­o­phy. It is lived truth. And the mes­sage of Je­sus Christ was nev­er about de­fend­ing doc­trines or draw­ing bound­aries of pu­ri­ty. It was a mes­sage of rad­i­cal love – love that crossed lines, em­braced the de­spised and saw the soul be­yond the sin. That is the love the world is starv­ing for to­day...

“From Britain’s protests to the US’ vi­o­lence, pub­lic the­atre of­ten drowns out deep­er ques­tions. The re­al is­sue is not which side shouts loud­er, but whether so­ci­eties can still sum­mon em­pa­thy in an age ad­dict­ed to di­vi­sion. Free speech is vi­tal for democ­ra­cy – but with­out em­pa­thy and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, it be­comes a blunt in­stru­ment that wounds the vul­ner­a­ble while shield­ing the pow­er­ful...With­out em­pa­thy, democ­ra­cies fal­ter...will we break the cy­cle of hate?... the on­ly way for­ward, the on­ly way to heal what is bro­ken, is love.”

Love was Je­sus’ great­est com­mand­ment. If we love God and love our neigh­bour, we would want jus­tice for our­selves and for our neigh­bour. The CC­SJ’s mot­to has guid­ed us since the com­mis­sion was es­tab­lished in 2003. It is based on the words of Pope Saint Paul VI. Jus­tice was at the heart of Paul VI’s work long be­fore he was elect­ed Pope. CC­SJ’s mot­to is the ti­tle of his 1972 Day of Peace Mes­sage: “If you want peace, work for jus­tice.”

He said: “Jus­tice will bring about Peace” (Cf: Is 32:17)...A Peace that is not the re­sult of true re­spect for man is not true Peace. And what do we call this sin­cere feel­ing for man? We call it Jus­tice.”

I re­call the beau­ti­ful words in the open­ing line of Pope Fran­cis’ 2022 mes­sage for the 55th World Day of Peace. His Mes­sage was a call to ac­tion for us to be peace­mak­ers: “How beau­ti­ful up­on the moun­tains are the feet of the mes­sen­ger who an­nounces peace” (Is 52:7). He said: “To­day, the path of peace, which Saint Paul VI called by the new name of in­te­gral de­vel­op­ment, re­mains sad­ly dis­tant from the re­al lives of many men and women and thus from our hu­man fam­i­ly, which is now en­tire­ly in­ter­con­nect­ed. De­spite nu­mer­ous ef­forts aimed at con­struc­tive di­a­logue be­tween na­tions, the deaf­en­ing noise of war and con­flict is in­ten­si­fy­ing...”

Let us com­mit to break­ing down bar­ri­ers, spread­ing love, and be­com­ing more and more fear­less ar­ti­sans of peace.