Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Murray Hill Conference Center
Workshop for Priests of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross
“Sowers of Peace and Joy”
August 6, 2026
To listen to an audio recording of this conference, please click below:
The following outline guided the conference:
- Introduction
- On this Feast of the Transfiguration, we ponder together Jesus’ divine glory shining through his sacred humanity. This was a revelation of what was ordinarily concealed on earth, but something we hope to gaze upon forever in the beatific vision. That concealed glory is something we have ever before us in the Holy Eucharist as God-with-us remains with us always until the end of time.
- In the theologians of both east and west, Jesus’ transfiguration is always linked to his resurrection, to his ascension, to his perpetual state in heaven.
- Josemaria preached a homily for the Ascension, which involves not just Jesus’ physical return to the Father’s side, but also the great commission, entrusting us, together with the Holy Spirit, to complete his mission. St. Josemaria used the occasion to describe basic vocation and mission of a Christian as “spreading of good, ‘infecting’ others with a desire to love, sowing peace and joy.” He went on: “There is no doubt that this apostolate will produce spiritual benefits for all: more justice, more understanding and a greater mutual respect among men. There are many souls all around us, and we have no right to be an obstacle to their eternal happiness. We have the obligation of leading a fully Christian life, of becoming saints, of not betraying God and all those who expect a Christian to be an example and a source of truth.”
- So he defined the essential Christian apostolate, and ours in the Work, as spreading good, infecting others with a desire to love, and sowing peace and joy.
- Today we meditate in particular on that last phrase, to sow peace and joy.
- Josemaria used this phrase often.
- In Furrow 59, in a chapter on Cheerfulness, he said, “May no one read sadness or sorrow in your face, when you spread in the world around you the sweet aroma of your sacrifice: the children of God should always be sowers of peace and joy.”
- In Furrow 92, he added: “Every Christian has the duty to bring peace and joy to his own surroundings on earth.”
- Again, in Furrow 864: “The task for a Christian is to drown evil in an abundance of good. It is not a question of negative campaigns, or of being anti On the contrary, we should live positively, full of optimism, with youthfulness, joy and peace.”
- In the Family:
- In Christ is Passing By 30, he used the expression in a homily on the Christian vocation of marriage and family. After describing the families found in the New Testament and how they lived in union with Christ, he said that they were “centers for spreading the Gospel and its message. Families no different from other families of those times, but living with a new spirit, which spread to all those who were in contact with them. This is what the first Christians were, and this is what we have to be: sowers of peace and joy, the peace and joy that Jesus has brought to us (CIPB 30).
- In Work:
- Friends of God 70: “Therefore, everyone, in his job, in whatever place he has in society, must feel obliged to make his work God’s work, sowing everywhere the peace and joy of the Lord. ‘The perfect Christian is always a bearer of peace and joy. Peace, because he realizes he is in the presence of God; joy, because he sees himself surrounded by God’s blessings.’”
- In suffering:
- In Christ is Passing By (168), in a homily on finding peace in the heart of Christ in the midst of sufferings, he focuses our attention on Christ on the Cross, mentions that suffering is part of God’s plans, and how the supernatural acceptance of suffering is “the greatest of all conquests.” This victory is something Christ wants us to experience and help others to experience. He commented on this apostolic dimension: “In the name of this victorious love of Christ, we Christians should go out into the world to be sowers of peace and joy through everything we say and do.” He said that peace and joy is the result of a “fight of peace against evil, against injustice, against sin.” Not only is the peace and joy not incompatible with fighting the good fight, but it’s a condition of it.
- In the face of fear and death:
- Friends of God 141: “It is Jesus who has invited you to follow him like a good disciple so that you can journey through this earthly life, sowing the peace and joy which the world cannot give. Therefore — and let me emphasize this once more — we have to walk without fear of life and without fear of death, without shrinking at any cost from pain and sorrow which, for a Christian, are always a means of purification and a chance for showing that we really love our fellow men, through the thousand and one circumstances of ordinary life.
- So sowers of peace and joy.
- The first step, since we can only give what we have, is becoming men of peace and joy.
- Jesus came into the world to give us both. To be united to him is to experience both.
- Peace
- Jesus is the long-awaited Prince of Peace.
- At his birth, the angels announced, “Peace on earth to people of good will.”
- Jesus told us during the Last Supper, words he reiterates through us every day at the altar: “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” (Jn 14:27).
- On the night of the resurrection, he wished the startled apostles twice, “Shalom,” “Peace be with you.”
- Shalom means wholeness, completeness, prosperity and well-being. It means to make something whole, to complete whatever is missing. In a word, it means that he’s wishing every spiritual blessing in the heavens, or, even more simply, wishing himself.
- Augustine, in City of God 19, defined peace as “pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis”: The peace of all things is the tranquility of order: the positive, harmonious state that results when every part of creation, society and the soul, is in its proper place and right relationship under God.
- Jesus wants us to have that peace, his peace, to have him as our great treasure, pearl of great price, better part, one thing necessary.
- He wants to help us to be in right order with him and, in him, in right order with others and all creation.
- Joy
- Jesus likewise wants to fill us with joy, which is a fruit of that peace.
- In John 15, after the Parable of the Vine and the Branches and Jesus’ words about his love for us and how to remain in it by loving others as he has loved us first, said: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” He wants us to share his joy, to abide in it, to have it perfected.
- He wants for us to find in him what the angels announced in Bethlehem, “Good news of great joy for all the people.”
- Like with the Parable of the Talents, he wants to say to each of us, “Come, share your master’s joy.”
- He tells us the joy of praying and having our prayers heard and answered by God: “Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joymay be complete” (Jn 16:24).
- He prays out loud so that we might have confidence in his praying for us, saying, during his great priestly prayer, “But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely” (Jn 17:13).
- Today we mark the 48th anniversary of the death of St. Paul VI. I think his two greatest documents help us to focus on joy. The first is his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), which we’ll mention soon. The second is his exhortation Gaudete in Domino from December 1975, in which he talked at length about Jesus’ natural and supernatural joys and how that’s supposed to impact the joy of a Christian. Let’s listen to his eloquent meditation on Jesus’ joy, the joy he wants to permeate his entire Mystical Body.
- “Let us … contemplate the person of Jesus during His earthly life. In His humanity He had experienced our joys. He has manifestly known, appreciated, and celebrated a whole range of human joys, those simple daily joys within the reach of everyone. … He admires the birds of heaven, the lilies of the field. He immediately grasps God’s attitude towards creation at the dawn of history. He willingly extols the joy of the sower and the harvester, the joy of the man who finds a hidden treasure, the joy of the shepherd who recovers his sheep or of the woman who finds her lost coin, the joy of those invited to the feast, the joy of a marriage celebration, the joy of the father who embraces his son returning from a prodigal life, and the joy of the woman who has just brought her child into the world. For Jesus, these joys are real because for Him they are the signs of the spiritual joys of the kingdom of God: the joy of people who enter this kingdom return there or work there, the joy of the Father who welcomes them. And for His part Jesus Himself manifests His satisfaction and His tenderness when He meets children wishing to approach Him, a rich young man who is faithful and wants to do more, friends who open their home to Him, like Martha, Mary and Lazarus. His happiness is above all to see the Word accepted, the possessed delivered, a sinful woman or a publican like Zacchaeus converted, a widow taking from her poverty and giving. He even exults with joy when He states that the little ones have the revelation of the kingdom which remains hidden from the wise and able. Yes, because Christ was “a man like us in all things but sin,” He accepted and experienced affective and spiritual joys, as a gift of God. And He did not rest until “to the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation…and to those in sorrow, joy.” The Gospel of Saint Luke particularly gives witness to this seed of joy. The miracles of Jesus and His words of pardon are so many signs of divine goodness: all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by Him, and gave glory to God. For the Christian as for Jesus, it is a question of living, in thanksgiving to the Father, the human joys, that the Creator gives him.”
- “But it is necessary here below to understand properly the secret of the unfathomable joy which dwells in Jesus and which is special to Him. It is especially the Gospel of Saint John that lifts the veil, by giving us the intimate words of the Son of God made man. If Jesus radiates such peace, such assurance, such happiness, such availability, it is by reason of the inexpressible love by which He knows that He is loved by His Father. When He is baptized on the banks of the Jordan, this love, which is present from the first moment of His Incarnation, is manifested: “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you.” This certitude is inseparable from the consciousness of Jesus. It is a presence which never leaves Him all alone. It is an intimate knowledge which fills Him: “…the Father knows me and I know the Father.” It is an unceasing and total exchange: “All I have is yours and all you have is mine.” The Father has given the Son the power to judge, the power to dispose of life. It is a mutual indwelling: “…I am in the Father and the Father in me….” In return, the Son gives the Father immeasurable love: “…I love the Father…. I am doing exactly what the Father told me.”He always does what is pleasing to His Father: it is His food and drink. His availability goes even to the gift of His human life; His confidence goes even to the certitude of taking it up again: “The Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” In this sense He rejoices to go to the Father. For Jesus it is not a question of a passing awareness. It is the reverberation in His human consciousness of the love that He has always known as God in the bosom of the Father: “…you loved me before the foundation of the world.” Here there is an uncommunicable relationship of love which is identified with His existence as the Son and which is the secret of the life of the Trinity: the Father is seen here as the one, who gives Himself to the Son, without reserve and without ceasing, in a burst of joyful generosity, and the Son is seen as He who gives Himself in the same way to the Father, in a burst of joyful gratitude, in the Holy Spirit.”
- This is the joy Jesus wants to perfect within us.
- Peace
- Sowers
- Let’s turn now to the apostolic dimension. We are called to be sowers of peace and joy.
- The proclamation of the Gospel was described by Jesus in the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. The Word of God is not just the words of God, but it’s also the Word made flesh, the incarnate prince of peace and the enflesh good news of great joy to all the peoples.
- There is of course the first three soil samples, but we’re called to sow regardless. To sow Jesus is to sow his kingdom, to sow his peace, to sow his joy.
- When Jesus first sent out his apostles, he told them to wish houses peace and told them that if a peaceful person does not live there, “your peace will return to you.” They’re supposed to be in peace as they go out. Even when they experience rejection, they’re supposed to dust it off and move on with peace and joy.
- As we see to sow peace and joy, we recognize that there is an enemy who sows weeds, who sows disharmony, who sows criticism and unhappiness. We need to be alert.
- The question is what do we sow? Do we see peace? Do we sow joy?
- Jesus called his disciples to be “peacemakers.” “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” That’s the way they will be true children of God. Not peace-wishers. Makers. Builders. Artisans. So it’s not just a wish, but a relationship with Christ we’re bringing and hoping they will enter.
- Sent us out to say, “Peace to this household.” “Your peace will return to you.”
- Pope Leo began his pontificate with this peace, saying last May 8:
- “Peace be with you all! Dear brothers and sisters, these are the first words spoken by the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for God’s flock. I would like this greeting of peace to resound in your hearts, in your families, among all people, wherever they may be, in every nation and throughout the world. Peace be with you! It is the peace of the risen Christ. A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.”
- Likewise with joy. We’re supposed to be catalysts of joy.
- We’re supposed to be, as Pope Francis said, joyful messengers of challenging proposals. Brimming with joy. How intentional are we in sharing this joy?
- Or St. Paul VI in Gaudete in Domino:
- “The disciples and all those who believe in Christ are called to share this joy. Jesus wishes them to have in themselves His joy in its fullness. … This joy of living in God’s love begins here below. It is the joy of the kingdom of God. But it is granted on a steep road which requires a total confidence in the Father and in the Son, and a preference given to the kingdom. The message of Jesus promises above all joy—this demanding joy; and does it not begin with the beatitudes?”
- Or Evangelii Nuntiandi:
- EN 80. Let us preserve the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing, even when it is in tears that we must sow. May it mean for us — as it did for John the Baptist, for Peter and Paul, for the other apostles and for a multitude of splendid evangelizers all through the Church’s history — an interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench. May it be the great joy of our consecrated lives. And may the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ, and who are willing to risk their lives so that the kingdom may be proclaimed and the Church established in the midst of the world.
- Models — St. Paul VI focused on various models for sowing joy and peace.
- Mary
- Queen of Peace, whose contemplative heart always held things in proper order, relating them to God’s promises even in the midst of swords piercing it.
- Cause of our joy whose heart ever rejoiced in God our Savior.
- Martyrs
- Kept peace because their whole life was ordered to God and joyful because they know that suffering and death is not the end, but the beginning.
- How can we not recall those who had that joy to the end:
- Lawrence whose feast is on Monday. Assum est. Versa et manduca.
- Maximilian, who kept his peace in the starvation bunker.
- Chi Zhuzi, an 18 year old who was preparing for baptism, who refused to worship idols and cried out, “Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood, will tell you that I am a Christian.”
- Saints
- They had peace and joy because they put their treasure in God and the things of God. They were full of God’s love and sought to love with that love.
- Philip Neri. When will we start to do good?
- Joseph Cupertino. Brought joy and peace to everyone, because he radiated it.
- Francis of Assisi. Pax et bonum, Pace e bene. He risked his life to reconcile warring family members, rival Italian city states, even Crusaders and Muslims. He who could recognize God’s presence even in animals could recognize his far greater presence in other human beings whom he believed were made in God’s image and likeness and to whom he knew the only worthy response was love. It’s not without reason that the religions of the world have regularly met in Assisi to pray for peace.
- Teresa of Calcutta, Nobel Peace Prize, loving trust, total surrender and cheerfulness as lived by Jesus and Mary in the Gospels.
- John XXIII. Peacefulness. Sense of Humor.
- It’s your Church, Lord, I’m going to bed.
- How many work in the Vatican? About half.
- Not long after he was elected pope, Blessed John was walking in the streets of Rome. A woman passed him and said to her friend, “My God, he’s so fat!” Overhearing what she said, he turned around and replied, “Madame, I trust you understand that the papal conclave is not exactly a beauty contest.”
- “I’m not admiring your crucifix. I’m admiring Calvary.”
- Substance of sowing
- Christ, the peace and joy incarnate. Also his words about peace and joy.
- Ourselves, when we’re living with peace and joy.
- Prayers
- Peacemakers
- Address conflicts and misunderstandings, the causes of lack of peace and understanding.
- Forgiveness and Reconciliation. (Rondine, Citadella della Pace. 1998. Arezzo. 15 conflict theaters.)
- Reconciling estranged friends and family members.
- Standing up for those treated unjustly
- Seeking fair solutions rather than judging.
- Apologizing first
- Practice humility, because so many conflicts come from pride.
- Confessors
- Acts of charity — listening attentively, speaking kindly, helping someone in need, visiting the lonely, showing patience with the difficult.
- Guarding our speech. Avoiding unnecessary arguments. Helping them form bonds and friendship.
- Loving, even one’s enemies.
- Prayer attributed falsely to St. Francis:
- Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; injury, pardon; doubt; faith; despair, hope; darkness, light; sadness, joy.
- Joy makers.
- Joy is a fruit of life according to the Spirit, a fruit of God’s indwelling.
- Therefore to be a joy-maker, we need to live in union with God.
- We need to give thanks in all circumstances.
- We need to put love into our interactions and service of others.
- We need to bring hope, encouraging people when they feel defeated, reminding others of God’s faithfulness, speaking words that build up rather than tear down, helping people to see possibilities, not just problems.
- Summary of formation
- In forming people for missions in general, Aparecida document gave a five-step program. Insofar as we are being formed and seeking to form others to be sowers of peace and joy, we can re-read this with those aims:
- Encounter with Christ — Can’t be taken for granted. Need to encounter his joy and his peace. Do we ponder his joy? Do we meditate upon how he brought peace into every situation he was in, including tense ones, including Calvary?
- Conversion — We need to turn with Christ in peace and joy. To confess what robs us, and to begin to do the things that will help us to grow.
- Disciple — We learn from Christ about peace and joy. Not just to know what he teaches but to practice what he imparts. Don’t let your hearts be troubled.… Why do you worry? … Rejoice and be glad on that day …
- Communion — He wants to bring us into communion with him and each other. Meant to be a source and expression of peace and joy. When things are truly focused on him, that’s what they become. Our parishes are supposed to be places that radiate both. We need to contribute to it. “Let us offer each other a sign of peace…” Some refuse that as if it’s somehow not a priority.
- Mission — Go out and do it, not just individually but together. We don’t sow alone. Gregory the Great’s thoughts about Jesus’ sending them out two-by-two.
- In forming people for missions in general, Aparecida document gave a five-step program. Insofar as we are being formed and seeking to form others to be sowers of peace and joy, we can re-read this with those aims:
- They had peace and joy because they put their treasure in God and the things of God. They were full of God’s love and sought to love with that love.
- Mary
- Conclusion
- Eucharist
- Peter’s words: Good, Lord, we are here.
- Jesus here is the source of our peace. We meet him risen from the dead. He reiterates the word peace. We wish each other at the beginning of Mass, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” We wish each other that the peace of the Lord be with each other always. We turn to the Lamb of God and ask him, “grant us peace.” We are sent forth in peace with God’s peace, glorifying the Lord by our life.
- Here he likewise feeds us with himself. St. Josemaria used to smile when giving Holy Communion because he was giving God, he was giving joy, happiness to others. Jesus rejoices that we are here. He wants to give himself to us to perfect our joy.
- To use St. Josemaria’s words, here he infects us with a desire to love by his standard, sowing peace and joy
- Jesus came into the world to give us both. To be united to him is to experience both.
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