“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”
Blessed is the heart at peace! Blessed are you, o Theophila, when you realize how loved you are, and your heart can recline upon the bosom of Jesus without fear. Blessed are you when sin and anxiety fade beneath the ocean waves of love. Blessed are you when the house of your soul is in order and you have made peace with yourself. You cannot extend the peace of God’s love to others when your heart still wars in vice, for how can you give others the love that you do not know? No, “a cheerful and good heart is always feasting” (Ecclesiasticus 30:27), for the joy of love makes all things festive and celebratory: “The joyfulness of the heart, is the life of a man, and a never failing treasure of holiness: and the joy of a man is length of life” (Ecclesiasticus 30:23). When your heart is reconciled to God and is filled with angelic hymns, “And all the angels stood round about the throne… saying: Amen. Benediction and glory and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honour, and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen” (Apocalypse 7:11-12), your heart will be at peace. This love and joy is infectious, for all people desire to be loved and be happy, and a joy that is composed, quiet, yet radiant is the result of a heart that is feasting on love. While temptations will still arise, love overcomes them, for Jesus does not look for a lack of temptation but that you choose Him in all things. One’s every action should be geared to the love of God, to fall more in love with Him yourself, and then to bring His merciful love to others. To give the gift of God’s love is to become a peacemaker. This mutual love then makes you and others into children of the same Father, playing together in the divine outdoors, the great sanctuary of this life that He has given you to cultivate love. This Beatitude also goes in a reverse manner, for being a child of God brings great peace: “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God” (1 John 3:1), and this knowledge of love brings the heart to rest, instills the virtues, which are expressions of love, and causes action oriented to the love of God rather than for oneself. Further, the term “peacemaker” could refer to the one that can see God’s love throughout the Old and New Testaments, bringing the entirety of the love story of Scripture into harmony, for wisdom “reacheth therefore from end to end” of the Bible “mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly. Her have I loved, and have sought her out from my youth, and have desired to take her for my spouse, and I became a lover of her beauty” (Wisdom 8:1-2). To observe this harmony and act in accord with it is to be a child of God, for you hear His words, and to implement the instruction of God is as if “he hath left one behind him that is like himself” (Ecclesiasticus 30:4). Finally, being a peacemaker can mean enduring the faults of others for the sake of love. To react to another’s way of doing things sows discord, but in realizing that you and everyone else are different, and express love differently, you cultivate peace. You are a child of love when you bear the ways of others: “Already indeed there is plainly a fault among you, that you have lawsuits one with one another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?” (1 Corinthians 6:7). Your King, the most meek Lamb, bore the iniquities and faults of all, and has silently and lovingly suffered all your failures, your every movement away from Him, ever welcoming you back with open arms and affection. Seek not to correct others as much as to make them love God more, and trust that He will burn out what is contrary to His will with this same love. “Hast thou heard a word against thy neighbor?”, including within yourself, “Let it die within thee, trusting that it will not burst thee” (Ecclesiasticus 19:10). Bring love to all, even when you have to reach into thorns to grasp it, and then you will be a peacemaker and a child of God.