An excerpt from the Gospel according to John, from today’s daily Mass:

John 14:27;

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

The only true peace is found in Jesus. The world abuses the notion of peace, calling it the absence of war or fulfillment of personal needs and wants or some other such falseness. But whatever the world’s definition of peace is, there is still a certain lack of it. There is never enough to satisfy if your definition of peace is centered upon the world and its values.

In our alcoholism, we found a type of peace after drinking sufficiently. We all know that feeling of seeming oneness with all creation or of a special insight into truth or the divine. We have all had that wispy certitude that we know what’s up. But after a fashion, that was never enough. The more we drank, the more we needed to drink as our search for peace was never satisfied. Just as in the world there is never enough satisfaction with what one has, therefore we seek to get more.

In Christ is the only true peace. His incarnation means He loves us enough to become like us, His dying for us on the cross meant He loves us to the point of ultimate sacrifice. This is a full, consummate love. And in Him is the summation of all our Hope. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and only in Him can we find our true selves because in Him we can detach from the world and its shallow meaningless values. The world serves only to distract. Jesus serves to bring us to the Father, in Heaven.

Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace.

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