Love and Peace

The hermit has been pondering peace in its relationship to love--and love and its relationship to peace.

It seemed as if in many instances, peace could be interchanged with love. Peace is spoken more frequently in the liturgy of the Mass than the word "love."

Yet, the hermit asked the VG and another priest, and a friend, and the attributes of peace are being distinguished from those of love.

The VG said they are different, and he thinks love is more active and peace not so active. I asked another priest, and he had much to say. He pointed out that peace is an interior disposition of the soul, and that it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and comes by the Holy Spirit. He said that love is not only a fruit of the Holy Spirit but is also a gift of the Holy Spirit. Peace then is an outcome, more or less, of love.

He did say, also, that peace and love have a relationship. I hadn't thought about how peaceful are people who exude love, and loving people exude peace--I mean, truly loving and truly peaceful people. The priest intimated that for it to be true peace, it must be a fruit of the Holy Spirit. He said that when people think of peace between nations, that is not necessarily interior disposition but is rather a condition of agreement, which is not peace as God means: within souls. True peace must also come from love. Often nations, the native people, do not love each other but have made an agreement to not fight!

I wonder if, in the VG's comment, if love is really all that active. But, also it was said that love has an object: an object of love. Does peace have an object? No, I guess peace is just there, as an interior disposition within the soul; and it is rather passive. Love begets an effort, it seems, and wants to act, even if it is in thought and prayer--contemplative. Yet, perhaps as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, love also is passive and receives, such as the Trinity loves and receives one another in the Godhead. The Holy Spirit placed Love Itself in the womb of Mary: an action.

It is odd how the novel the hermit edited for a friend threatened to disrupt the peace. I think it is because the novel is tainted with impurity. It is not God's view, not His way. At first it was all right, but then the writer tried to make a perversion seem acceptable, or at least did not counter it as it is in God's view, but rather made it how he wanted it to be. I nearly went to confession this morning but will wait for the regular confessor, if possible. I felt that the image of these fictional characters would then be dispelled. But I think through prayer, through love of the goodness of God and of knowing how even small matters really do tell us what He wills, inner peace will be bulwarked. The one priest said that it is up to the person to make sure the peace, from the Holy Spirit, is not disrupted (or as I think of it: tainted). This comes under protecting our eyes and minds--all our senses--from that which is perverse. Corinthians 13 says: Charity dealeth not perversely. I looked up perverse, and the root means "turned away from what is right or good."

When one considers this, one has to be very firm with one's soul (and in that, the will and intellect) in discerning what is right and good. This morning at Mass, the priest spoke of selflessness, as the OT reading was about Daniel and the other three who gave themselves (were taken for the court) selflessly but also kept themselves purified by not defiling themselves with the King's food and wine; they did not go against their religious beliefs and eating laws. They sacrificed, in other words. The Gospel spoke Jesus' words about the woman who gave all her livelihood as opposed to those who give from their excess. But giving of our livelihood is also more than money or objects; it is giving of our soul to God, and this must be total.

Jesus says, "My peace I bequeath to you." The hermit continues in this peace. Ever since the hermit heard the word "bestowal" while driving, and then accepting that canonical approval was not going to be "bestowed," the hermit had the sense, the trust, that somehow something was going to be bestowed. At Mass the other day, the bestowal from Jesus came clear: His peace. There is peace of the Holy Spirit bestowed on the hermit.

The priest who explained most about peace and love, questioned when the hermit said God had bestowed peace? "Is this the peace of the Holy Spirit? Is it peace in the inner disposition of your soul?"

"Yes," the hermit responded, in awe and amazement at this reality, at this bestowal from God.

A couple others who have asked, have responded, "Well, for the time-being, anyway." Somehow the hermit knows that the peace bestowed through, with and in the Holy Spirit, is a peace that lasts eternally. Yet there is vigilance as in all fruit; and the fruit and gift of love, also, require vigilance, care, effort in the keeping. It is love that will bulwark the peace bestowed.

Love: the charity of not dealing perversely, the charity of not rejoicing in inequity but rejoicing in truth, the charity of patience and kindness, of forgiveness, of humility, not envying or coming to anger, of not seeking evil, not looking to oneself. Prayer of the soul, prayer of the intellect and will, prayer all for God, will protect the precious peace.