Most of us want PEACE.  The time for PEACE to arrive and pervade the earth is not ours to decide, but it is ours to work to bring about.

“Helen Keller could neither see nor hear, yet she became a great public speaker.  One night someone asked her?

“If you could have one wish granted what would it be?’

She said, ‘I’d like world peace.’”  (Action Year C p.265)

Wow, not to hear, not to see BUT world peace.

How much of an instrument of PEACE are you, or am I, in our workplace/home/neighborhood?  How can we become better disciples of Jesus’ PEACE?

May be this short story, “The search for the magic seed” can help us.

“There is an old Chinese tale about a woman whose only son died.

In her grief, she pleaded with a monk renowned for his holiness:

‘what prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?

The monk said (to her), ‘Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow.  We will use it to drive the sorrow out of your life.’

The woman set off at once in search of the magical mustard seed.  She knocked on the door of a splendid mansion & said, ‘ I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow.  Is this such a place?  It is very important to me.’

They told her, ‘You’ve certainly come to the wrong place’, and then they began to describe to her the tragic things that had befallen their household.

The woman said to herself, ‘Who better able to help these poor unfortunate people than I who have had misfortune of my own?’  She stayed to offer what help and comfort she could and then continued on her way.

The results were the same wherever she stopped whether at hovel or a palace, (tales of sadness and misfortune).  She became so involved in ministering to other people’s grief that she forgot her quest for the magical seed.

The magic seed was her compassion.  (Table Talk Year C, Jay Cormier, p.151-152)

The old Chinese tale reminds us that we are at our best when we put other’s needs first and in doing that we will be blessed.  We are challenged to bring God’s Kingdom of compassion and justice to our daily lives by the manner in which we live those lives.

Do you trust that God is all you need?  What in your life is evidence that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ?

           

           

 May God Be Blessed!