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.
But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps-who works in a foreign land-will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace.
We know that peace is only possible when it is the fruit of justice. True peace is a profound transformation by means of the force of nonviolence that is the power of love.
Purusing peace means rising above one's own wants, needs, and emotions.
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
For all the civilians saved thanks to the presence of peacekeepers, there have been those who were lost - the United Nations personnel who sacrificed their lives for a noble cause. Even as we mourn our fallen colleagues, we are all uplifted by their unflinching commitment and are inspired to strive even harder for the collective cause so eloquently envisaged in the United Nations Charter: a world free from the scourge of war.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a powerful message. A durable peace is not a single achievement, but an environment, a process and a commitment.
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