Christ’s Peace Even in the Midst of Hardship, Fifth Tuesday of Easter, May 12, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Memorial of SS. Pancras, Leopoldo Mandic and Bl. Alvaro del Portillo
May 12, 2020
Acts 14:19-28, Ps 145, Jn 14:27-31

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• One of the greatest paradoxes in the Christian faith, one of the most important things for us to grasp and live, involves the reality of God’s peace in the Christian life including in times of persecution. Jesus tells us in the Gospel today and reiterates for us in every Mass, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” He was saying these words to the apostles just hours before he would be arrested and on the vigil of his being massacred by Roman soldiers. He wanted them to remain at peace during all that would transpire, just as he would be at peace. At the beginning of this discourse, which we heard on Friday, Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God. Have faith also in me.” Today he repeats those words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” He reiterates that he is going away but will come back and has given them these words of peace before everything would transpire “so that when it happens you may believe.” He reminds them that the “ruler of this world is coming” but clarifies that “he has no power over me.” Jesus will allow everything that will occur to happen to him so that the world will know “that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me.” Jesus peacefully underwent even his crucifixion in order to show his love for the Father, because real love is shown in trial.
• Jesus was able to say these words because, as we’ve been talking about all Easter season long, by his resurrection he would show that not even a brutal crucifixion is enough to take one’s peace away, that there’s nothing truly to be afraid of, that in the end God triumphs and all of us who live and die in him will share that victory. That’s the ultimate ground for the peace he gives us and leaves with us. Our peace is grounded in our living relationship with him, the Prince of Peace. It is made possible by the peace treaty he signs in his own blood with God the Father through his mercy. It’s made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit that he and the Father send. We see both fully on display on Easter Sunday evening when Jesus enters the closed doors of the Upper Room, twice wishes his startled followers peace, and then says “Receive the Holy Spirit” and “those whose sins you forgive are forgiven.” Pope Francis said several years ago in a homily in the Vatican that the peace Jesus leaves and gives is fundamentally the Holy Spirit, remembering that when Jesus in the Upper Room wished the apostles “peace be with you” he then breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The peace that Jesus leaves with us, the peace that the world can’t give or rob, is the peace that flows from our grounding our entire life on God. If God is our treasure, if God is our foundation, if Jesus is our way, truth and life, if we’ve constructed our existence on him the cornerstone, then persecution, trouble, or even crucifixion can’t take that peace away but rather can confirm it.
• If this is true, why is there such lack of peace in the world, in our country, in so many of our families, religious communities and parishes, even in our own hearts? That’s because the vast majority of people haven’t truly based their lives on God but are placing their treasure in things that won’t last. Jesus described the path of peace and happiness in the Beatitudes, but few of us really live by what he teaches us. Many place their peace in money rather in God’s kingdom, and if the stock market takes a dive, if the economy goes into recession, if the gas bill skyrockets, they immediately are destabilized. Jesus says that the path of peace, his faith, is the path of spiritual poverty than finds its true wealth in what thieves can’t destroy, rust can’t corrode, or the IRS can’t tax or confiscate. Many of us place our peace in other people’s affection and admiration, but this, too, is insecure. As soon as someone turns on us, rightly or wrongly, we lose our peace. Jesus, on the other hand, teaches us that if our peace is founded on him, we won’t lose it even when people revile us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely because of him. Jesus ultimately says that our peace needs to be based on hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for holiness, for a just relationship with God. If we have this, then we can’t lose it, even under trial. The only way we can lose it would be through sin, which is placing something or someone else above God and the lack of peace that results is medicinally and mercifully meant to bring us back to the Sacrament Jesus established to restore our peace with him.
• This lesson Jesus teaches us about the foundation of peace is illustrated very powerfully in today’s first reading. Saints Paul and Barnabas were full of peace and no one could take that away from them. At the beginning of today’s passage, Jews from Antioch in Pisidia and Iconium arrived in Lystra, won over the crowds, and proceeded to stone Paul, just as he himself had once presided over the stoning of St. Stephen. They dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. It’s almost certain that he was in fact dead, not just unconscious. If people were intent on stoning someone to death, they wouldn’t just hurl stones and walk away, but they’d ensure that the stones had accomplished their homicidal purpose. Likewise the disciples could easily have observed whether Paul was breathing or had a pulse and they, too, thought him dead. But they didn’t lose hope or peace. St. Luke, an eyewitness and a doctor, tells us that the disciples “gathered around him.” They prayed to the One who had risen from the dead to allow Paul to experience that resurrection. And he did! And then we observe the strength that comes from the peace Christ gives: though Paul was doubtless was full of lumps, discolored bruises and black eyes all over his body, instead of nursing his wounds, instead of moving on to another city lest he undergo anew that same fate, he with incredible courage and also deep peace returned to the city. He was not “troubled or afraid” in the least. He had the peace that comes from a living relationship with the risen Lord Jesus. And from there, he and Barnabas retraced their steps along their first missionary journey, returning to the places where they faced opposition and were run out of town — Derbe, Iconium, Antioch in Pisidia — on their way back to the disciples in Antioch in Syria.
• Along the way, Paul strengthened the spirit of the disciples who must have been concerned about his wounds and his safety and encouraged them to persevere in the faith by saying “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” He let them know that they, like he, would have to undergo many trials, but that none of those should rob them of their peace or their faith. Those would be opportunities for them, just as for Jesus and Paul before them, to show that they “love the Father” and “do just as the Father has commanded.” Real love costs and our willingness to suffer hardships for the Lord who suffered crucifixion for us is a means by which not only we grow in faith and express our faith, but it’s an opportunity to ground ourselves more and more in God, in his peace, in his holy will that seeks to bring good even out of evil, even out of what we suffer. The early Christians in large part received this message and, through many hardships, grew in faith and in number. And their peace in the midst of everything was one of the most powerful proclamations of the Gospel that they would ever have been able to announce to the world. And it was in bringing that message and means of peace that they were peacemakers and children of God.
• This paradox between living in the Lord’s peace while undergoing hardships for the kingdom is seen clearly in the life of the saints and blessed the Church remembers today on their respective feasts. St. Pancras was a 14 year old Roman during the persecution of Diocletian. He was a convert and was eventually brought before the authorities for being a Christian, given the chance to save his life by sacrificing to the pagan gods. Impressed by his pluck in resisting their threats, those in charge offered him wealth and power if he would sacrifice, but he refused and was beheaded. He was peaceful throughout it all, because he was unafraid of the hardships necessary to enter the Kingdom. He was imbued with a peace that only Christ can give and Roman emperors can’t rob. We likewise celebrate St. Leopoldo Mandic today, one of those denominated by St. John Paul II as an extraordinary apostle of the confessional and who, together with St. Pio of Pietrelcina, was brought by Pope Francis from Padua to Rome at the beginning of the Jubilee of Mercy. He was a great peace-giver, because he was sent out by Christ with the capacity to restore peace between sinners and their Savior. The formula of absolution in the Confessional, which he recited hundreds of thousands of times, prays that God may give the penitent “pardon and peace.” He was filled with Christ’s peace-giving mercy and became the instrument to bring that peace to so many. Finally, the Church also celebrates today the feast of Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, the collaborator and successor of St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. Don Alvaro, as he was known, suffered various physical ailments and was loaded with extraordinary amounts of work, from building the headquarters of Opus Dei with really no money, to helping bring forward the canonical approval for Opus Dei (which was a novelty in Church law), to serving on various Vatican II commissions, but he always kept his peace because he kept the presence of God and pondered continuously his divine filiation. The three of them teach us how to live with the peace of Christ in the midst of hardship and all the things that can arise in daily life.
• At Mass each day we have the privilege to enter into Communion with the Prince of Peace who leaves and gives his peace literally in person. This is the peace he wants us to share with each other. To offer each other the Sign of Peace, as we’ll have the privilege to do verbally in a few minutes, is to offer Jesus and to pray that his peace may inundate each other. We will pray that the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world that rob us of our spiritual serenity may “grant us peace.” And we will ask him to strengthen us to “go in peace” at the end of this Mass, glorifying the Lord by our lives of peace even in the midst of whatever hardship may come!

These were the readings for today’s Mass: 

Gospel JN 14:27-31A

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me tell you,
‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’
If you loved me,
you would rejoice that I am going to the Father;
for the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it happens,
so that when it happens you may believe.
I will no longer speak much with you,
for the ruler of the world is coming.
He has no power over me,
but the world must know that I love the Father
and that I do just as the Father has commanded me.”