In the quiet of the snowstorm I have been thinking and praying about the terrible events in Arizona last weekend. Like many of you I have been listening to talk radio programs, reading newspaper editorials and watching news commentary on television concerning the murders and woundings in Tucson. It is a devastating time for our nation because these shootings and the subsequent news coverage and conversation have laid bare division and hatred in our country.
At the same time I have been meditating on the passage of St. John's Gospel when the risen Christ appears to his frightened disciples barricaded in the house in Jerusalem. The first gift our Lord offers his disciples is the gift of peace. Peace we know is not a passive state for Christ but an active, even aggressive gift that is given for the making of harmony and unity. The disciples through the death and resurrection of our Lord now have the ability to work for harmony and reconciliation in the world.
Through Baptism we are Christ's disciples. He gives us that same gift of being peacemakers in our communities. The Gospel challenges us not just to shake our heads at the horror of events and add to the rhetoric but to actively use this gift. The response to that challenge is not always immediately obvious, but if we pray with this gift that we have been given and that the Holy Spirit is already moving deep within us, God will show us the way.
The Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE
Jan. 12, 2011