The risen Christ met His disciples behind locked doors, when they were afraid and terrified: “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst” (Jn. 20:19-31). And what did Jesus do then?
He did not try to drive the Jews away and prevent His disciples from any imminent harm. Neither did He ask His disciples to double-lock the doors for their safety. On the contrary, He offered them inner peace—that which He had won for them by His passion, death, and resurrection. “Peace be with you,” Jesus said. And then He “showed them His hands and His side.” He offered them peace even though they did not deserve it for they, too, had abandoned Him during His passion and death.
This is what our risen Lord often does in our lives. He may not remove the things that disturb our peace of mind in this world, but He always offers us an inner peace that we could never earn. This is the peace that He possessed throughout His earthly life. This is the peace that He won for us by His death and resurrection. This is the singularly unique peace that He promised us when He said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn. 14:27).
The risen Christ continues to offer this peace to us today. Sadly, all too often we do not dispose ourselves to receive this interior peace often. We futilely search for peace through favorable conditions, pleasant relationships, hassle-free lives, etc.
Thankfully, there are three sure ways that we can dispose ourselves, not to the external, contingent peace, but to the inner peace of Christ.
Firstly, we must allow God to forgive us for all our sins all the time. The peace of Jesus comes from His perfect union with the Father by the power of the Spirit. Union with the Father shaped Our Lord’s attitudes and actions in His earthly life, for “He who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to Him” (Jn. 8:29). So to have the peace of Christ ourselves, when we examine our thoughts, words, actions, and omissions seriously each day, we must do so in the light of God’s words and of His undying love for us. Then we bring these sins to the sacrament of Confession because that is where we have a divine guarantee of complete forgiveness for our sins: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
We experience this peace of Christ when we are reconciled with the Father—and show this reconciliation by our actions. Like Jesus, we experience the abiding presence of God as we strive to please Him in all things. This abiding presence becomes an immense, uninterrupted source of inner peace in our chaotic world.
Secondly, we must forgive ourselves for our sins and failures. Jesus lived every moment of His earthly life as a beloved Son of the Father. The risen Christ does not give in to self pity or dwell on His sorrowful passion and unjust death. Rather, He shows His wounds to all as a testament to His Father’s undying and faithful love for Him: “He showed them His hands and His side.”
We too experience the peace of Christ when we do not give in to an exaggerated sense of pity over our sins and failures. Such self-centered sorrow and self-condemnation completely destroy any sense of inner peace and hope in us.
Let us always remind ourselves that we are reconciled to God in Jesus Christ as His beloved sons and daughters. He sees the good that is in us no matter what we are going through or what we have done. We may struggle with sin constantly but that does not diminish our identity as God’s beloved children who can be saints one day. Such a thought will surely bring us inner peace in our struggles.
Lastly, we must forgive others. Jesus always forgave those who hurt Him, even on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34).
Inner peace is impossible when we hold onto our resentments and hurt feelings towards those at fault. We put conditions on our forgiveness without knowing that we are only prolonging our inner turmoil by doing so. Let us forgive them unconditionally for our own sake so that we can have the peace that Christ won for us by His death and resurrection.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, without inner peace we cannot see the amazing things that the risen Lord is doing in our lives and in the world today. And without seeing these things, we cannot cooperate in them. When we allow external factors to obliterate our inner peace, we become part of the problem; we become agents of chaos in our world. But when the peace of Christ reigns within us, we collaborate with Him in doing amazing things in our world.
St. Peter shows us an example of inner peace in action:
They even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall one or another of them. A large number of people from the towns in the vicinity of Jerusalem also gathered, bringing the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits, and they were all cured. (Acts 5:15-16)
Who is the instrument of the risen Christ in all these healings? St. Peter. A man who slept when Jesus was in agony in Gethsemane. A man who denied Jesus during His Passion. A man who could not wait to go back to his fishing activities after the resurrection. But also . . . a man who received forgiveness for all his sins and who forgave himself. This is how he became an instrument of the risen Christ in healing all persons.
As we continue to contemplate the Lord’s Divine Mercy, allow the risen Christ to come to you all the time, no matter what it is you are going through. He shows us His wounds that won for us an interior peace, forgiveness, and renewed faith, even though we do not deserve it. Let Him forgive us for all our sins all the time, and then let us forgive ourselves and others too, so that we can partake in this very peace of the risen Christ.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
