Father Richard emphasizes the inner transformation necessary for the work of peace:
The gospel is not about being nice; it’s about being honest and just, and the world doesn’t like those two things very much. Our job is to learn how to be honest, but with love and respect. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that before we go out to witness for justice, we have to make sure that we can love and respect those with whom we disagree.
Imagine the surrender necessary for those who have been oppressed for hundreds of years to continue to work peacefully for justice. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can do it without contemplation. How do we get to that deep place where we do not want to publicly expose, humiliate, or defeat our opponents? When we are hurt, we want to hurt back. This is our ego’s natural defense mechanism. Through prayer and contemplation, we change from the inside—from a power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes everything.
True contemplation is the most subversive of activities because it undercuts the one thing that normally refuses to give way—our natural individualism and narcissism. Once we are freed from our narcissism that thinks we are the center of the world, or that our rights and dignity must be defended before other people’s rights and dignity, we can finally live and act with justice and truth.
John Dear describes the importance of connecting with our core identity as children of God:
Peacemakers throughout history testify to the need for quiet meditation if we are to live the nonviolent life of peace. The [ministry] of the nonviolent Jesus, according to Luke’s account, begins with him sitting in silent prayer by the Jordan River. In that quiet time of contemplative listening and opening to the Spirit of peace, he heard that he was God’s beloved [Luke 3:21–22]. In this sacred space, he was able to take that message to heart, to claim that truth as the core of his identity.
Like the nonviolent Jesus, we too need to sit still in silent meditation and open our hearts and minds to the Holy Spirit of peace and let the God of peace call us God’s beloved. We need to give God permission to love us, name us, and claim us if we want to be disarmed, healed and freed to practice loving nonviolence.
That is why quiet meditation is so crucial to the life of nonviolence. In that silent meditation, we can hear God say to us, “You are my beloved.” We learn who we are, we remember who we are, and we are strengthened once again to be who we really are. In that strength and confidence, we feel liberated from our inner violence and freed to get up and walk outside into the world of violence to offer the hand of peace and nonviolence. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2014), 86, 87.
[2] John Dear, The Nonviolent Life (Long Beach, CA: Pace e Bene Press, 2013), 34–35.
Image credit and inspiration: David Clode, untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Australia, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like a butterfly in open hands, peacemaking requires the humility of opening our hearts to the delicate dance of co-creating a just peace.
Story from Our Community:
I recently traveled to San Damiano chapel in Assisi, Italy, where St. Francis first heard Jesus’ voice. It’s a tourist site now, and as I settled in to pray, cell phones were ringing, families were chatting, and a Franciscan priest was speaking to a group of visitors. I felt annoyed. The noise was affecting my chance to pray in this holy place. In an instant, I felt inspired beyond the noise into a deeper space within me. In that moment, I experienced Oneness—with and among—all the noise and strangers around me. I am grateful for the unexpected wisdom I found in that holy place.
—David P.
