Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
[John 14:27]
“Blessed are the peacemakers.”…When the inner peace of the mind and heart is established, then man becomes a peacemaker. He disseminates peace externally also with his presence, his behavior, his words…I think, my child and brother, that deep peace is born and increases with unceasing prayer. Nothing else nourishes and renews it as much as the Name of the Lord.
An elderly hermit of Mount Athos quoted by Archimandrite Ioannikios Kotsonis, 1998
As a way of expressing deep concern but also from a sense of helplessness, I have heard a number of people say, “All we can do is pray.” I think this minimizes the value of offering a prayer response to the events of war. Rather prayer can be our first response, and the place from which our subsequent actions then flow. When we sit with the Prayer of the Lamb in silence we are being a place where intercession is occurring, and where the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus is at work within us and through us transformation, healing and reconciliation are occurring. The meditational style of this prayer provides us with a practical way to “wage peace.” One could say that meditation is God’s life in us. We sit there and what begins to emerge is awareness of the Spirit at work in our lives, and awareness of peace. As we are being engaged by the Spirit and as we are coming into the realization that we are indeed made in the Image of God, peace comes. Why do I say that it is peace that comes? Because peace is intrinsic to God. As we sit with the Prayer in meditation awareness grows of our identity in Christ and of the basic underlying quality of that consciousness. That quality is peace. From our prayer practice what then emerges is peace as a characteristic of the one who prays. The capacity for aggression and violence diminishes and disappears. And this causes a shift in the dynamics of our relationships. The one whom we once saw as opponent, now is viewed with growing love. Waging peace begins with ourselves as the basic way to change the whole environment, and to meditate is to wage peace.
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