Cardinal Tobin: Peace as Gift and Task

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

As Pope Leo XIV has reminded us on several occasions, the first words Christ spoke to his Apostles after he rose from the dead were: “Peace be with you.” (Jn 20:19). What he gave as a gift after his Resurrection, he left as a task after his Ascension: The Apostles, with the help of the Holy Spirit, were to communicate Christ’s peace to others. Therefore, authentic peace is both a gift from God and a task that we who are His witnesses must carry out.

How can peace be both a gift and a task at the same time? Perhaps a simple analogy can help us understand.

Our teeth were given to us without our consent. They are a gift, a built-in part of our human nature. Under normal circumstances, they will simply grow in on their own. But those same teeth, which we initially received as a gift, cannot be maintained in good health without our cooperation. If we do not take their maintenance as a task, then what was initially given to us as a gift can decay and rot, becoming a source of great pain! If that happens, then good dental health can only be restored through drastic, sometimes painful, and inevitably costly measures.

The same is true of the moral blueprint of the universe, and the peace that is the fruit of living according to its logic. It is given to us as a gift and a task. As a gift, the moral blueprint for peace has been written by God into human nature. In the Incarnation of the Son, the seed of peace has been planted in human history. In the giving of the Holy Spirit, the energy for peace is constantly renewed.

But these gifts, which provide the foundation for building a culture of peace, are also given to us as a task. If we do not cultivate these gifts, then our relationships — with God and each other, with our inmost selves and with the world — will rot and decay and become for us a source of great pain. Then, as we know all too well, peace can only be restored through drastic and costly measures, if at all.

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