Today’s readings call us to reflect on the linkages between justice and peace. In today’s times it seems people hold on to the perception that without justice there can be no peace. Can there be peace without justice? There are myriad recognizable injustices, with people all over the world living lives of turmoil, at the expense of their justice, and certainly their peace. These victims of injustice include 80 million refugees, migrants, and internally displaced persons. They include another 40 million souls in some form of modern slavery, such as human trafficking or forced labor. There were fewer last year, and our pace suggests there will be more next year.
Yet, for many of us, all we really want, or truly need, is to be peaceful and have peaceful, happy people around us. I can say that, but I have the advantage of the privilege of justice, which affords me a generous peace. No one is pushing me away from my home, my family, my education, my work. I do not live in fear. So, today’s responsorial psalm “Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever” works for me, but does it move me? Do I trivialize what the Lord is calling for here? I am blessed with justice in my life, and strive to live peacefully, but what more can I do to bring about the truly just, peaceful, and prosperous world that God wants for us? How can we turn things around for the 120 million aforementioned souls? We need a big fat miracle, a monumental miracle of our time.
The twentieth century Italian mystic Maria Valtorta wrote five volumes of her visions of the life of Christ, entitled Poem of the Man~God. In these works she writes just what she sees and hears. When the apostles ask Jesus how to bring about a miracle, He explains the necessary elements: 1) Trust in the Goodness of the Lord, 2) Belief in the Power of Prayer, 3) Forgiveness without Resentment, and 4) Communion with God. It is likely we can all agree on the hardest part: not just forgiveness, but forgiveness without resentment. Let’s apply this framework to catalyze our monumental miracle that promotes justice for today’s forcibly displaced and enslaved. We can trust that The Lord, in His Goodness, cares for these souls as much as he does each of us. We can recognize His love in our lives, appreciate it, and trust that He is living with and loving each marginalized soul. We can pray for them with a steadfast belief in the power of our collaborative prayer. We must believe in the efficacy of our prayer. We can forgive, but it must be without resentment, as we pray for the captors, the governments, the unethical businesses that propagate such suffering. Our resentment lessens as we recognize our own culpability and complacency as consumers who overconsume or disregard the true cost of our preference for inexpensive items. Lastly, we can stay in communion with God. We can make our decisions based on His Will for our lives. We can focus on doing the things we are uniquely created to do.
Let’s just try. Let’s try to help the Lord bring about greater justice in our time, one day at a time, one prayer at a time. Let’s pray with steadfast trust in His Goodness, in hope for our own fullness of peace in knowing that we are working to share the joy of justice that we know is His desire, His love, for all of us. Rich or poor, free or enslaved, we are one, we are His, in fullness of peace, forever.
