The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

August 2001

In June of 1968 Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated just moments after accepting congratulations from his supporters after winning the California primary for the Democratic Party. I remember that day because it was only a few days before my birthday. In fact, the funeral was on my birthday. The images and meaning of those days are still quite vivid, as are the images of the assassination of Martin Luther King, jr. and President John F. Kennedy. Such events certainly remind us of the importance of living in the now. Not only is it important to live in the now, but how we are living in the now has eternal consequences as our Lord reminds us today. This is illustrated quite effectively in the eulogy Ted Kennedy gave for his brother Robert:

My brother gave a speech in South Africa in 1966 which sums up his feelings about the course of events in the world:

There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people, and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich, and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.

These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember—even if only for a time—that those who live with us are our brothers and sisters; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek—as we do—nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

We hear in these words an echo of the Word of God given us this day. We hear that what we do here matters to God and our destiny as individuals and as a community. So often religious folks get caught in the "hereafter" that they forget, or choose to forget that what we do in the here and now is critical to the formation of the person I take into the hereafter! Mahalia Jackson put it so well: " Some people got so much heaven on their minds that they ain’t no earthly good." Such a truth reminds us of what the Second Vatican Council stated in the document, Gaudium et Spes in 1965. In states that modern atheism has much of its force and roots in the scandalous behavior and inaction of the members of the Church from top to bottom. The Church at times can forget why it is here and get caught up in trivia rather than the prosecution of the gospel in the world. It can be seduced by illusions too if it forgets its Lord.

We are told that all is vanity! What is meant by that? Well, simply put, it means that so much of human energy is spent on illusions. Many human beings, in fact, all of us to a degree rests our understanding and actions on things that are fake—they are not real, they don’t lead to the real joy we a re looking for. Some of things are, as we are told in our Lord’s parable, money, security, good health, a personal trainer, titles, academic degrees and the like… But what is essential is often missing in many lives—a living relationship with God that shows itself in concrete loving and compassion. The letter to the Colossians tries to remind us of this truth. We are called to put to death the sources of the illusions we create for ourselves. Only by doing this can we come to grow closer to the Lord and to ourselves. To think of what is above is to begin to allow it into our lives. We are challenged to allow the false ego-centered self to step aside so the Holy Spirit can step in. Then our false emotional programs for happiness that are wrapped up in the illusions begin to be revealed to us, and this begins the process of stripping them away until we come to the truth capture in the parable. The only true reality, the only reality worth investing our energy on is the kingdom of God. Here and only here is the place where we will find true happiness. We’ve been told what this kingdom is like haven’t we? We see it in the fullness of Christ: compassion, love for the other, unwillingness to compromise love for immediate gains, justice and peace.

We know what is real and what are vanities but so often human beings create illusions, or buy the illusions of popular culture because they seem more immediately accessible. But these things are a cheat, and as our Lord reminds us, a costly cheat. Even the investment in a retirement plan can be an illusion. It can create in us the unrealistic expectation that we are entitled to retire—reality owes us that! And we spend so much time looking to the future of that retirement that we may miss the present! What then are we to do? According to the Lord: live now, love now, reconcile now, build peace now, work for justice now—for now is all we have. If we chose this way we have been told that the Spirit of our Lord is with us and aids us in our quest. None of us can do everything, but all of us can do something.

We end with the words of Robert Kennedy:

Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work on one single person. A young monk began the Protestant Reformation, a young woman reclaimed the territory of France, it was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World.

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

These are things of heaven.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Created October 6, 2001