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Morning Reflection in the Season of Pentecost
September 10, 2025
“Peace talks will become plausible only if the U.S. joins Europe in putting maximum pressure on Russia, convincing Putin he can’t win and can’t afford to fight any longer.”
Reflection: Jo Ann B. Jones
The above quotation was taken from Trudy Rubin’s opinion column in The Philadelphia Inquirer, on August 20, 2025. She had just returned from a visit to Ukraine earlier in the month. I have been hoping and praying for some ending of this war, together with the war in Gaza for the duration of these conflicts. With no end in sight, I have stepped back and thought more about what peace is.
I was prepared to be heartened by an announcement that such talks would begin and then I thought differently. I recall from earlier efforts that the quest for peace can easily be overtaken as the interested parties jockey for position over the arrangements – the shape of the table, the seating, the very agenda, what is and what is not on it and the order in which the topics arise. And of course there is the timing of the removal of troops and who will pay for what damage and how much, and the return of prisoners of war, which ones, when, etc. All of these are necessary arrangements to make. But they speak more to suggest that peace is more about the absence of conflict. And peace is certainly much more than that. Or, perhaps, more correctly that is not at all what peace is. It suggests that it relates to actions rather than an entirely different mode of being.
I draw your attention to two important invocations of peace that occur regularly in our Eucharist. We exchange “the peace of the Lord” after the absolution of our sins and in the final blessing, the priest confers “the peace of the Lord, which passes all understanding…” This suggests to me that peace does not arise from human endeavors. It is much more than actions. It is a way of being that emanates from God. We are blessed by God’s gift of peace to us and called to consider how it affects our relationship with God first, and each other second. For, if anything at all, peace is at the heart of our relationship with God in the hope that it takes root in ourselves and then in and with each other. This peace is formed and informed by love – the love that God has for each of us. By our very nature, we do not have this love, but we can recognize what it offers to us and what it demands of us. And bringing peace to fruition in ending the war between Ukraine and Russia and the war between Israel and Gaza has much more to do with how those who wish to end the war can express that love for their fellow human beings in their talks and relationships that they build first to end the war and then how they will lead their fellow human beings to enter into and build relationships of conversation, curiosity about the other, openness, celebration of each other and the shared likenesses of each other.
We would all probably profit from some encouragement from Jesus in this endeavor. As he said to his disciples, “Let your heart not be troubled…: We do not think of the heart as those of the ancient world did at the writing of this passage. For the heart stands as a metaphor for what it means to be human, what drives us and makes us tick. It launches within us the dynamic forces that make us all unique individuals. Jesus looks to the heart, rather than to our behavior, to assess and determine whether we are faithful
At the heart of this endeavor I pray for a recognition of the power of God’s love for God’s people that will lead us into peace.
Prayer for Peace
Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed, kindle, we pray thee, in the hearts of all men the true love of peace, and guide with thy pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth; that in tranquility thy kingdom may go forward, till the earth be filled with the knowledge of thy love; through Jesus Christ Our Lord.
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