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. —Mother Teresa
Today, we hear of the Apostles’ and early Christian community’s way of proceeding. They were of one heart and mind, they held nothing in common, and no one was needy among them. They had life and love, and it was shared. We do not share in this same kind of community today.
It brings me no peace to know that people go hungry each night, no certainty of food arriving when they awake. It brings me no peace to know that people sleep on the streets each night, no chance that there will be a home available when they awake. It brings me no peace to know that men and women sit in cells alone each night, with no hope of a visitor when they awake.
What do you need? Is it so hard to imagine that every other person on earth needs those same things? Invite the resurrected Christ into your heart, ask him for the strength and generosity to look bravely into the eyes of the other, the forgotten ones, and say, “Just like me, they want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer.” And then, do something more. As Anthony De Mello says, “Peace is only found in yes.”
—Eric Immel, S.J., a Jesuit scholastic of the Wisconsin Province is studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.