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Office Of Readings | Week 31, Sunday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World Of The Second Vatican Council | Gaudium Et Spes | On Fostering Peace
‘The promotion of peace.’
The reading from Gaudium et Spes presents one of the most concise theological accounts of peace in the modern magisterium. The Council situates peace not in the suspension of conflict or equilibrium of force but in a moral and spiritual order. Peace, it declares, ‘is the work of justice,’ an expression drawn from Isaiah and later from the tradition of Catholic social thought. Justice here is understood not only as distributive equity but as the right ordering of relationships among persons, societies, and nations according to divine law.
The constitution links peace with the ‘order implanted in human society by its divine founder’. Human history therefore stands under the sovereignty of a moral order that transcends political contingency. Yet peace is never static: it must be ‘built up continually’, because human conditions and institutions evolve, and because the will is impaired by sin. Peace requires both inner discipline — ‘control of the passions’ — and outward vigilance by legitimate authority.
The text develops a social theology of dignity. Peace depends upon the safeguarding of the human person and the willingness of individuals and peoples to trust, cooperate, and share. Brotherhood is described not as sentiment but as a condition for justice itself; it presupposes respect for human dignity and solidarity in both material and spiritual goods.
The Council then moves from ethics to theology. Peace is ‘the fruit of love’, and love transcends what justice can achieve by itself. The peace that human communities seek is an echo of the divine peace manifested in Christ. The ‘Prince of Peace’ reconciles humanity through the cross, abolishing enmity and forming one body. The Spirit of love is the agent of this reconciliation, translating divine unity into human community.
Finally, the passage calls for action. Christians are summoned ‘to live the truth in love’, to join with all genuine peacemakers, and to esteem those who reject violence in defending justice. This summons implies both realism and hope: peace remains a human task, fragile and provisional, yet it participates in the divine act of reconciliation already accomplished in Christ. The building of peace, therefore, is both a moral duty and a participation in the redemptive work of God.
A Reading From The Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World Of The Second Vatican Council | Gaudium Et Spes | On Fostering Peace
Peace is not the mere absence of war or the simple maintenance of a balance of power between forces, nor can it be imposed at the dictate of absolute power. It is called, rightly and properly, a work of justice. It is the product of order, the order implanted in human society by its divine founder, to be realized in practice as men hunger and thirst for ever more perfect justice.
The common good of the human race is subject to the eternal law as its primary principle, but its requirements in practice keep changing with the passage of time. The result is that peace is never established finally and forever; the building up of peace has to go on all the time. Again, the human will is weak and wounded by sin; the search for peace therefore demands from each individual constant control of the passions, and from legitimate authority untiring vigilance.
Even this is not enough. Peace here on earth cannot be maintained unless the good of the human person is safeguarded, and men are willing to trust each other and share their riches of spirit and talent. If peace is to be established it is absolutely necessary to have a firm determination to respect other persons and peoples and their dignity, and to be zealous in the practice of brotherhood.
Peace is therefore the fruit also of love; love goes beyond what justice can achieve. Peace on earth, born of love for one’s neighbour, is the sign and the effect of the peace of Christ that flows from God the Father. In his own person the incarnate Son, the Prince of Peace, reconciled all men to God through his death on the cross. In his human nature he destroyed hatred and restored unity to all mankind in one people and one body. Raised on high by the resurrection, he sent the Spirit of love into the hearts of men.
All Christians are thus urgently summoned to live the truth in love, and to join all true peacemakers in prayer and work for peace. Moved by the same spirit, we cannot but praise those who renounce violence in defence of rights, and have recourse to means of defence otherwise available to the less powerful as well, provided that this can be done without injury to the rights and obligations of others or of the community.
Christian Prayer With Jesus
God of truth and mercy,
you have made peace the fruit of justice
and love the bond of perfect unity.
Grant that all peoples may seek what makes for peace
and preserve the dignity of every person.
Dispel the pride and fear that divide nations,
and teach us to trust in the strength of your Spirit.
Through your Son, the Prince of Peace,
who reconciled the world to you upon the cross,
may we become builders of the kingdom
where justice and peace shall embrace,
through the same Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Peace: The right ordering of human relationships in truth and justice; in Christian theology, the reflection of divine harmony revealed in Christ.
Justice: The moral virtue of giving each their due; in social doctrine, the foundation of peace and the expression of respect for human dignity.
Common Good: The sum of social conditions that allow individuals and groups to reach fulfilment more fully and easily; the purpose of political and social life.
Solidarity: The moral and social principle of mutual responsibility and cooperation among peoples; the practice of shared humanity.
Subsidiarity: The principle that higher authorities must support, not absorb, the functions of lower communities; a safeguard for human freedom and dignity.
Reconciliation: The restoration of communion between God and humanity, and among human beings, through Christ’s death and resurrection.
Love (Charity): The divine and theological virtue by which persons seek the good of others for God’s sake; it perfects justice and produces true peace.
Nonviolence: The deliberate renunciation of physical force as a means of resolving conflict; considered valid when it preserves the rights and responsibilities of all.
Eschatology: The theological understanding of history and destiny in light of the ultimate fulfilment of God’s plan; the horizon of lasting peace.
On Tuesday, His Grace turns to the theme of Jesus’ hidden years. His Grace asks the students to consider questions concerning what really happened: ‘Who, for instance, was Joseph? Was he indeed a carpenter, or has Joseph’s true role in the society in which he lived been misconstrued and forgotten to us? Though it be a beautiful, simplifying image to grasp, which offers to us much that is of value in Catholic faith… ‘A wise elder, which carpenter could mean, or a great engineer, an architekton, which in the Greek does not mean carpenter. But carpenter in the Hebrew could mean a wise man…’ His Grace turns the pages of his Bible back and forth, as if to itemize the paucity of information. Then he says: ‘What I think I can say to you with confidence is that it is of profound significance that we simply don’t know what Jesus was doing for most of his earthly life. There are some very different possibilities. One idea cherished by the Church is that Jesus worked with his father Joseph as a carpenter. Another possibility is that Jesus lived and prayed and studied closely with John the Baptist. They were cousins, and very close, almost the same, in age. Luke’s Gospel tells us clearly that Jesus and John knew each other from within the womb before they were born. So there may have been something quite important happening there. You see, we don’t know – it is an impossible mystery to us – just how much Jesus had to learn. This is because, if Jesus knew everything, humanly speaking, even as a tiny baby, then how can we say he is fully human? We simply can’t probe too far into this mystery, but we can draw extraordinary truth and healing from this thought, which becomes of immense relevance in our own lives. Jesus came to know and to understand himself not merely as a son of God, but as God the Son, and so as self-identical with his Father. It is not an adoptive relationship. Jesus is God. Now so much is hidden here. But this is a great gift. If you think about it, how do we come to know that we are loved by God, that we have our relationship with God? What are we born with in here’ – his chest – ‘and what do we have to learn? This is to say, what is gifted to us by other Christians at our baptism? ‘Jesus must have studied, and experienced profound revelation about who and what he truly was, and, so it seems to be, these studies cannot have been confined to the Semitic world. But this is the important point: there is a hiddenness about all of this. No matter which schools and which sects our Lord might have encountered all these years, this to us is as a desert space. What this means is that we can enter into the hidden life of Jesus, and there we can discover our own being with God, our own sonship. Our own particular being loved by God can come to us, if we can enter within this great unknown – into this desert space, where we are loved by Jesus. I firmly believe that there may be a great Lenten mystery in this period of our Lord’s life.’ A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 1 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 2 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 3 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 4 | King James Audio Bible | KJV A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 5 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Holy Week | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 6
Saint Isaac of Stella reflects on the deep unity between Christ, Mary, the Church, and the individual Christian. His central conviction is that God’s saving work is one, though it is shared in different ways. What is true of Christ is extended to those who belong to him; what is true of Mary is reflected in the Church; and what is true of the Church touches each believer [ … ]
The actions of the evil cause pain, but they think they’re safe from harm. They curse, lie and deceive, causing trouble wherever they go. They even secretly plan to hurt the innocent, like a lion hiding to catch its prey [ … ]
