HT Pray for Peace
HT Pray for Peace
The first words that Pope Leo XIV spoke in his Urbi et Orbi address — to the city and the world — were: “Peace be with you all! These are the first words spoken by the risen Christ…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 disarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.”
And today, the Christ who is about to be crucified bequeaths peace to his disciples, “Peace I leave to you, my own peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give to you.” He promised peace before his arrest, and at his first resurrection appearance to his disciples, he literally breathes peace on them. But Jesus and Leo understand that what the Church means by peace isn’t usually what the world means by peace. As Leo said, the peace of Christ must somehow disarm its enemies while remaining disarmed. And later in his “Farewell Discourse,” Jesus tells his disciples: “I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me. In the world you will have hardship, but take courage: I have conquered the world.’ The peace of the Lord that we extend to each other will not automatically save us from hardship, pain, harassment, or even death.
So, what is this peace that Jesus has bequeathed to us? Some Christians may think that one should always pray extemporaneously “from the heart.” I’ve had to improvise sometimes. But the set prayers and collects in our prayer book, in some cases, have been prayed from the heart for centuries, even millennia. And the Standing Liturgical Commission that created the 1979 Prayer Book prayed over these prayers and collects. I believe that these prayers gave voice to our hearts, and they also teach us how to pray and what to pray for. There are separate collects for peace in both our Morning and Evening Prayer services. They can teach us how to pray for peace, and praying, receive that peace.
From Morning Prayer: O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, you humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A collect is a collection of prayers — praise of God the Father, intercession for someone else and/or petition for ourselves, invocation of God’s only Son, and finally trust that our prayers shall be answered as best for us (Amen literally means, “So be it.”). So, in the morning, with the day ahead of us with all its potential challenges, we acknowledge that true peace — not just the absence of open warfare — is “authored” by God alone; because it is a peace rooted in the unconditional love of God who loves “concord,” harmonious agreement between us and God and between each other. To that praise we add the eternal life that is God’s alone to give in Christ Jesus, and the service of God in which we find true freedom, because as Bob Dylan saith: we all gotta serve somebody. And if we try to secure peace at some else’s expense, we’ll just end up owing another someone else.
Having reminded ourselves of why we should praise the God of peace, we can then make a right request of God: that we know ourselves to be defended by God whose son “conquered the world” by enduring the worst that the world could do to him; and that in our endurance we not be conquered by our fear, for as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, he, the Father, and the Holy Spirit live in us and breathe peace and calm though us. Finally, we entrust our prayer to God through God’s only Son, who has revealed God as love, and close with “Amen” (So be it.)
Now from Evening Prayer: Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen.
So, at the end of the day, we come to God with our desires, judgments and works for the day, some good, right, and just, others maybe not. But we can praise God for our good desires, right judgments, and just works. And acknowledging God as the source of all that is good, right, and just, we can petition for the same peace that Jesus bequeathed to his disciples two millennia ago, so that we will be able to focus on God’s will for us. Free from fear, we can give thanks for having endured the worst that our enemies could do to us today, and find reassurance of God’s mercy and unconditional love, which as Pope Leo said, is the source of our peace.
The other three synoptic Gospels, while not exhaustive biographies Jesus by any means, still feel more like bios, reminiscences of events that took place long ago. It is this Gospel of the Beloved Disciple in which Jesus says things like, “Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and will be loved by my Father, and we shall come and make a home in that person.” Not when we die, now. It is John’s Gospel in which Jesus promises a divine presence that is no less real because it is spiritual. And with that divine presence comes a peace that is disarmed and disarming because it is not the aftermath of war, but the fruit of love.
Prayer is response to God’s presence. The prayers of peace in our prayer book are one way that you can understand, and experience more fully, the peace that Jesus Christ has bequeathed to us.
May 25th, 2025
6th Sunday of Easter
The Rev. David Kendrick