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Office Of Readings | Week 31, Monday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World Of The Second Vatican Council | Gaudium Et Spes | Re-education For Peace
‘Re-education for peace.’
This passage from Gaudium et Spes develops the Council’s moral and spiritual understanding of peace as a human vocation requiring renewal of thought and will. Peace is not sustained merely by diplomatic measures or institutional structures but depends on an inner conversion of persons and societies. The Council describes this as ‘re-education’ — a reshaping of conscience and culture to overcome hostility, prejudice, and indifference.
The text begins with an analysis of responsibility. Public officials and citizens are interdependent: statesmen rely on the moral and intellectual maturity of their peoples, and societies reflect the dispositions of individuals. As long as attitudes of ‘hostility, contempt and distrust’ persist, political strategies for peace remain ineffective. The work of peace, therefore, begins in the formation of opinion and the cultivation of virtue. Education, especially among the young, becomes a theological as well as civic task — to form minds capable of universal vision and wills disposed to justice.
The Council calls for a ‘change of heart’ — the biblical metanoia — as the essential foundation of this reeducation. It links personal conversion to global solidarity, urging humanity to see itself as one family. Without such conversion, even technological progress can become destructive, leading to the ‘awful peace of death’. This phrase encapsulates the paradox of modern civilisation: immense scientific advance coupled with moral peril.
The constitution insists, however, that Christian hope endures. The Church, though living amid anxiety and conflict, continues to proclaim the time of grace and conversion. Hope is not naïve optimism but the recognition that divine mercy is active in history.
Finally, the text examines the causes of discord — injustice, economic inequality, pride, domination, and envy — and identifies them as violations of the moral order. Peace cannot coexist with structures or attitudes that deny human dignity. The Council urges cooperation among international institutions to prevent violence and to promote justice through coordination and solidarity. Peace is presented as both task and grace: it demands structural reform and personal renewal, sustained by faith in the transforming power of God’s Spirit.
A Reading From The Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World Of The Second Vatican Council | Gaudium Et Spes | Re-education For Peace
Men must not be content simply to support the efforts of others in the work for peace; they must also scrutinize their own attitudes. Statesmen, responsible as they are for the common good of their own nation and at the same time for the well-being of the whole world, are very much dependent on the opinions and convictions of the general public. Their efforts to secure peace are of no avail as long as men are divided or set against each other by feelings of hostility, contempt and distrust, by racial hatred or by inflexible ideologies. There is then a very great and urgent need to reeducate men and to provide fresh inspiration in the field of public opinion.
Those engaged in education, especially among young people, and those who influence public opinion, should consider it a very serious responsibility to work for the reeducation of mankind to a new attitude toward peace. We must all undergo a change of heart. We must look out on the whole world and see the tasks that we can all do together to promote the well-being of the family of man. We must not be misled by a false sense of hope. Unless antagonism and hatred are abandoned, unless binding and honest agreements are concluded, safeguarding universal peace in the future, mankind, already in grave peril, may well face in spite of its marvelous advance in knowledge that day of disaster when it knows no other peace than the awful peace of death.
In saying this, however, the Church of Christ, living as it does in the midst of these anxious times, continues unwaveringly in hope. Time and again, in season and out of season, it seeks to proclaim to our age the message of the Apostle: Now is the hour of God’s favor, the hour for change of heart; now is the day of salvation.
To build peace, the causes of human discord which feed the fires of war must first be eliminated, and among these especially the violations of justice. Many of these causes are due to gross economic inequality and delay in providing necessary remedies. Others arise from a spirit of domination and from a contempt for others, and, among more fundamental causes, from human envy, distrust, pride and other forms of selfishness. Since man cannot bear so many violations of due order, the result is that, even where war does not rage, the world is constantly plagued by human conflict and acts of violence.
The same evils are also found in relations between nations. It is therefore absolutely necessary that international institutions should cooperate more effectively, more resolutely and with greater coordination of effort, in order to overcome or prevent these evils, and to check unbridled acts of violence. There must also be constant encouragement for the creation of organizations designed to promote peace.
Christian Prayer With Jesus
Lord of all peoples,
you call the world to conversion of heart and mind.
Dispel the fear and mistrust that divide your children;
teach us to see one another as members of one family.
Renew in us the desire for truth and justice;
strengthen all who work for reconciliation and peace.
May our learning and labour serve the common good,
and our hope be anchored in your steadfast mercy.
Grant that through your Spirit
we may build not the peace of silence or death,
but the living peace of your kingdom,
where justice and love endure for ever.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Metanoia: A Greek term meaning conversion or change of heart; in Christian theology, the inner transformation that aligns human will with divine will.
Public Opinion: The collective moral and intellectual disposition of a society; shaped through education, media, and culture, it determines the effectiveness of political action.
Solidarity: The recognition of mutual responsibility among individuals and nations; the social virtue that sustains peace and justice.
Inequality: A structural or moral imbalance in the distribution of wealth, power, or opportunity; identified as a root cause of conflict.
Common Good: The set of conditions that allow all members of a community to flourish; the moral end of politics and international cooperation.
Structural Sin: The persistence of social or institutional patterns that perpetuate injustice and division, even beyond individual intentions.
Providence: The divine governance of history; the conviction that human effort toward peace participates in God’s sustaining will.
Moral Order: The network of principles that express the right relationship between persons and communities; the framework within which true peace is possible.
Reeducation: The deliberate effort to reshape thought, culture, and institutions toward moral and spiritual renewal; a continual task for both Church and society.
Christian Art | Our Lord Jesus On The Cross | God The Father | God The Son Office Of Readings | Advent December 23rd | A Reading From The Treatise Of Saint Hippolytus Against The Heresy Of Noetus | The Hidden Sacrament Is Revealed ‘The hidden sacrament is revealed.’ In this reading, Saint Hippolytus writes against the Noetic heresy, which denied the real distinction between the Father and the Son by treating them as the same person acting under different names. The purpose of Saint Hippolytus is to defend the Church’s confession of one God who is not solitary, but who exists with his Word and Spirit. Hippolytus begins by setting a principle: knowledge of God comes from the Holy Scriptures, not from speculation or private reasoning. Faith is not shaped by human preference but by what God has chosen to reveal. The Father determines how He is believed, the Son how He is glorified, and the Spirit how He is received. This establishes Scripture as the rule of faith and guards against theological invention. Hippolytus then affirms that God existed alone before creation, with nothing co-eternal alongside Him. At the same time, God was not without reason, wisdom, or power. Hippolytus insists that plurality within God does not compromise divine unity. God contains within himself Word, wisdom, and counsel. Creation begins when God wills and manifests His Word. The Word is not created from nothing but proceeds from God and acts as the agent of creation. The Word is first invisible to the created world, though known to God. When God chooses, He makes the Word visible, described as ‘Light of Light’. This language safeguards both distinction and unity: the Word comes from God and reveals God, without being separate from Him. The manifestation of the Word is ordered towards salvation, so that the world may see and be saved. Hippolytus identifies this Word clearly with the Son of God. Through him all things were made, and he alone comes forth from the Father. The Law and the prophets belong to the same saving plan. God speaks through them by the Holy Spirit, so that they proclaim not their own ideas but the Father’s will. Revelation is therefore coherent: creation, prophecy, and incarnation belong to one divine purpose. Hippolytus appeals to the Gospel of John to show continuity between prophecy and fulfilment. The Word spoken of by the prophets is the Word made flesh. Though the world was made through him, it failed to recognise him. This failure does not negate God’s plan but reveals the depth of the mystery now disclosed. A Reading From The Treatise Of Saint Hippolytus Against The Heresy Of Noetus | The Hidden Sacrament Is Revealed There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures and from no other source. Whatever things the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us look; and whatever they teach, let us learn it; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as he wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify him; and as he wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet storming by force the things which are given by God, but even as he has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them. God, subsisting alone, and having nothing coeval with himself, chose to create the world. And conceiving the world in mind, and willing and uttering the Word, he made it; and at once it appeared, formed it in the way he desired. For us it is sufficient simply to know that nothing was coeval with God. Outside him there was nothing; but he, while existing alone, yet existed in plurality. For he did not lack reason, or wisdom, or power, or counsel. All things were in him, and he was the All. At a time and in a manner chosen by him he made his Word manifest, and through his Word he made all things. He bears this Word in himself, as yet invisible to the created world. He makes him visible, uttering the voice first, and begetting him as Light of Light. He presents him to the world as its Lord; and whereas the Word was visible formerly to God alone, and invisible to the world which is made, God makes the Word visible in order that the world might see him and be able to be saved. This is the mind which came forth into the world and was manifested as the Son of God. All things came into being through him, and he alone comes from the Father. He gave us the Law and the prophets; and in giving them, he made them speak by the Holy Ghost, in order that, receiving the inspiration of the Father’s power, they might declare the Father’s counsel and will. Thus, then, was the Word made manifest, even as the blessed John says. For he sums up the things that were said by the prophets, and shows that this is the Word, by whom all things were made. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made. And later, The world was made by him, and the world did not know him; he came to his own, and his own did not receive him. Christian Prayer With Jesus Lord God,You are one, and from You come the Word and the Spirit.You have chosen to make Yourself known, not by human effort,but by what You have revealed in the scriptures. You spoke Your Word, and all things were made.You made that Word visible, so that the world might see and be saved.Grant that we may receive what You give,believe what You teach,and worship You as You have shown Yourself to be. Keep us […]
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