The gospel of Matthew, chapter 5:9

When President Jimmy Carter held high the hands of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister, Menachem Begin of Israel, in a demonstration of peace on the White House lawn in September, 1978, he declared: “blessed are the peacemakers.”

Thirty three years later, there is still no peace in the Middle East in spite of unrelenting efforts by the United States and the United Nations to broker a lasting-peace there. Why is that? Surely, it is because peace cannot come from without; it must come from within; it must take root inside the hearts of the individual by overcoming attitudes of hatred, resentment, and the thirst to dominate or control others.

The seventh beatitude offers a spiritual challenge to the aggressiveness and factionalism of the world. It offers a new way of solving differences among people; a new way of mutual harmony based on reconciliation rather than divisiveness.

The gift of Christ to His followers after the resurrection was the gift of peace, “not as the world gives it,” (John 14:27) but as Christ gives it because He rescues us from the disorder of sin. This is why St. Augustine defines peace as the tranquility of order. Jesus calls the peacemakers, children of God, because God is the author of peace by creating an orderly universe and rescuing His children from the disorder of sin. A true Christian is a harbinger of peace, not war; and he or she must wage peace with the same intensity or even more than worldly people wage war. Jesus makes clear the opposition between His peace and the false peace of the world:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but the sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

Christians will be persecuted for the peace they represent because it will be in conflict with the false peace of the world.
Before St. John wrote the fourth gospel, Pope Clement in 96 A.D, wrote an apostolic letter to the church of Corinth urging peace among the brethren who were torn apart by worldly dissension. Peace does not come easy. It can only be established by rejecting the disorder of sin.

Peace is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit; it flows from the spirit of the Lord within us. As Jesus reminds us, His peace is not of this world; it is of the Holy Spirit.

To wage peace, we must begin first with ourselves by rejecting the disorder of sin within us in favor of interior peace.
Secondly, we must be at peace with God by doing His holy will.

Thirdly, we must live in harmony, respecting one another for God lets the sun “rise on the just and unjust,” (Matthew 5:45).
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”

Fr. Hugh Duffy