“Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.”
“If you want peace, work for justice.”
Pope Paul VI
As a precursor to thinking about world peace, it is necessary to recognize that governments and government agents cannot enforce peaceful co-existence. Governments desire power above peace, governments covet profits from its nation’s war machine and munitions industries above peace, and governments employ military might as an insurer of peace within its own borders at the expense of violent oppression elsewhere in the world. The great Roman Empire was created on this principle. The American experience also became an empire in this manner. Peace on an international level is unattainable without the intervention of a supernatural mediator.
Perhaps that is what Pope Paul VI is inferring in this quote. Wise men know that mankind is violent and warlike and that the governances created by man are equally so. The peace envisioned is not going to happen in the halls of government but rather within the temples of man. Man is a spiritual being housed in a physical body, his temple. When that spirit is tuned in to a greater universal force, the process of peacemaking can begin. It is a miracle of interior transformation which prepares each individual to journey to the destiny of enlightenment offered by his/her Creator.
The transforming process begins with a recognition of inherent ego and its continual demand to be self-satisfied. Slowly ego is replaced by sacrifice and awareness of surrounding suffering. The injustice of world systems becomes increasingly apparent as the individual reaches out to live in solidarity with all brothers and sisters, to seek justice for all people. Justice mothers the driving desire to share resources equally, to treat others compassionately, and to extend peaceful co-existence to the entire creation. Striving for universal justice becomes the life work which will usher peace into the worlds existing within the temples. No government can deter or destroy that which dwells within.
lpb - quest 