Peace is not just the absence of war. Like a cathedral, peace must be constructed patiently and with unshakable faith.
Interpretation
Peace requires active effort and belief, not just the end of conflict.
This quote emphasizes that peace is not merely the lack of war or violence; rather, it is a state that needs to be intentionally built and nurtured over time, much like the construction of a grand cathedral, which involves patience and unwavering faith in the process. It suggests that true peace goes beyond superficial calm and requires a deeper commitment to harmony and understanding.
In practice
In a speech about conflict resolution, one could say, 'As Pope John Paul II stated, peace must be constructed patiently and with unshakable faith.'
True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which. was accomplished here... In This Child - the Son who is given to us - we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails - the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of this town: Bethlehem, the house of bread. God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life
And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential except this: father, child, and love. And then, looking at the simplest things, we will all say, Could we have not learned this long ago? Has this not always been embedded in everything that is?
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
Man matures through work which inspires him to difficult good.
United with the angels and saints of the heavenly Church, let us adore the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. Prostrate, we adore this great mystery that contains God's new and definitive covenant with humankind in Christ.
The question that we must ask is whether we are making progress toward the goal of universal peace. Or are we caught up on a treadmill of history, turning forever on the axle of mindless aggression and self-destruction?
I never thought that the child who was a famous symbol of war would one day be invited to become a symbol of peace.
That's what peace processes are about - changing bullets for votes.
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.
Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life.
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
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