September 5. St Mother Teresa of Calcutta.    PEACE ON EARTH BEGINS IN THE HOME.   (From BECOMING ECO-FRIENDLY FAMILIES)

The world of today is experiencing wars and conflicts on very serious levels and in many places.  The news we see and hear in our homes is constantly filled with reports of war and violence of all kinds. How can this not influence our attitude towards life, peace and harmony?  Peace is not only an absence of war but also the harmony of right relationships and living happily, practicing the life skills that build and strengthen family relationships especially gender relations.  Peace is not something passive but needs to be built.  

In this context, and the 2025 Jubilee Year theme of Hope, Pope Francis’ message for World Day of Peace 1 January 2025  is “Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace.”  “If we really wish to prepare a path to peace in our world, let us commit ourselves to remedying the remote causes of injustice, settling unjust and unpayable debts, and feeding the hungry.”

The Jubilee tradition in Old Testament Judaism included forgiveness of sins and debt cancellation. This requires genuine conversion on all levels, personal, local and international.  Surely at the family level the matter of forgiveness and even debt cancellation has relevance. If we say Peace must Begin in the Home, let’s ask how much domestic violence and even femicide are perpetrated there?  How many wars are and have been fought historically over maintenance, inheritances, land and property?  

The topic of peace also brings to mind important world figures, religious, political and social such as Mahatma Ghandi,  Archbishops Oscar Romero and Desmond Tutu.  St Mother St Teresa of Kolkata has written: “ Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile. Smile five times a day at someone you don’t really want to smile at; do it for peace. Let us radiate the peace of God and so light His light and extinguish hatred and love for power in the world and in the hearts of all people. .
Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other-that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?  Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families.

ACTION AND PRAYER. Learn and pray the peace prayer of St Francis.

Make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred let me sow love.  Where there is injury pardon and where there is discord harmony.

Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, to receive sympathy as to give it,

For it is in giving that we receive, in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in forgetting self that we shall find unending peace with others.   Amen

Reflect, share, act. Scripture:  Then the king will say to those on his right, `Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Matthew 25.  Pope Francis.   Some parts of our human family can, it appears, be readily sacrificed for the sake of others considered worthy of a carefree existence. Ultimately persons are no longer seen as a paramount value to be cared for and respected, especially when they are poor and disabled, not yet useful – like the unborn, or no longer needed, like the elderly.   We have grown indifferent to all kinds of wastefulness, starting with the waste of food. FT 18. ,     Eco-tip and prayer: Make a study of the life of St Mother Teresa and show support for her Missionaries of Charity. Pray the Glory be to the Father…………..