Peace is conflict. Peace is violent. Peace, like most things, is no negative; it is not merely the absence of war or the absence of hatred, but a \u201cshining, affirmative thing\u201d, as solid as war and as real as a violent fist. Because, and before you accuse me of paradox, recall that the peace Christ brings is not \u201cas the world gives.\u201d This peace is effectively a denial of any spiritual battle, a denial that
St. Michael is busy decapitating demons.<\/a> This worldly peace can be roughly defined as the glazed look of those having a good day, good grades and a nice house, while the peace of God is the clear-eyed gaze of those who know that Christ has conquered the world, sin and death. And this peace is a source of conflict.\u00a0\nFor the world is inherently unfulfilled. No amount of consumer products, sunny days, or wannabe, spiritual pay-to-pray religions will ever give the world-dweller peace. And what can infuriate the unfulfilled more than someone fully alive, than the fulfilled among them? I\u2019ve been there, living a religion-is-not-cool-and-I-can-be-happy-and-at-peace-without-God kind of life, and the most prominent feature of this life was not laughter and meditation, but being pissed off at fulfilled, happy religious people. Has it ever struck you that the majority of atheistic websites are devoted, not to atheism, but to attacking religion? It is no strong testament to their world view that it is eternally focused on negatives, but it is a strong testament to ours that we can drive enemies to the point of constant anger by doing nothing but living our creed. When we have the peace of Christ, we have a weapon. When we are living in the knowledge that our Lord goes before us and wins our battles, we strike against the world with our very beings,<\/span> not maliciously, but inherently and necessarily. So the Lord does wish peace upon us, but He knows full well that that very peace will turn \u201ca man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man\u2019s enemies will be the members of his own household.\u201d<\/p>\nSo off we go to mass, to receive the Holy Eucharist, to receive the true peace that annoys the world. We go, and when we come back, if we are a brave, if we are courageous, if we are unashamed of the peace we have within us then we will set the world on fire, we will declare war on the world, we bring a sword to the heart of all those with glazed eyes and feeble hands, and that sword will be called peace, peace without limits. It looks like this:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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