Homily – Mass for Peace
(Homily Given by Most Rev. Raymond J. Lahey at the Mass for Peace in the World on August 30, 2006)

August 30, 2006 Little Bras d’Or

My dear friends,

 

We gather today around God’s altar both to pray for peace and to celebrate in the Eucharist, that is, in thanksgiving, the peace and reconciliation that is ours as Christians in Jesus Christ. He is our peace, the letter to the Ephesians tells us; he has reconciled both Jews and Gentiles – those who were near and those who were far off – into one body, one new humanity. Even more than this, he has reconciled the whole human race to God. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we celebrate peace; the peace between God and humankind that was won for us by the Cross of Christ; the peace that Christ has left to the Church; the peace that as Christians and members of his one Body we are called to give witness to the world.

 

As yet we constantly celebrate the Eucharist in a world torn by conflict and division. Today we are shocked by the terrible loss of life in Lebanon – and in Israel; we have become almost numb to the constant state of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, and occasionally our attention is even caught by the several so called “smaller wars” which continue to destroy both hope and life in central Africa. We live in a world where far too often the opportunities for peace have been squandered for national or economic gain, or because people cannot let go the terrible baggage of past hurt and division.

 

It may seem somewhat odd that a Mass for peace serves also as a closing celebration for a workshop on liturgical music.  But it stands as a reminder, first of all, that we never celebrate the liturgy apart from the real situations of our world. The Eucharist particularly is always a celebration of the Paschal Mystery, the fact that the Christ who took on all the realities of the human condition, except in sin, brought all human realities into a marriage with God, an unbreakable bond that is sealed by the Spirit. This was a Christ who knew well war and suffering and death, but who through his own sacrifice on the Cross, brought humanity into the new life and vision of God.  In every liturgy, what we ultimately celebrate is this transition in Christ from human conflict and limitation to the sure and certain peace that is of God.

 

It is all the more appropriate that we focus on peace as we conclude a time immersed in sacred music. When I had the privilege of writing the introduction to the CBW III, I wrote that music was the voice of the soul. I could have been more specific in saying that virtually all music, secular and sacred alike, is music of the human soul that yearns for peace. When our ancestors played bright jigs and reels, they were celebrating peace. When they sang “The minstrel boy to the war has gone”, they were decrying the terrible way in which the lack of peace robs the young of both youth and life. When soldiers in the first and second World Wars sang “It’s a long way to Tipperary” or “There’ll be blue skies over the white cliffs of Dover”, their songs voiced that real yearning for peace that could only come from those who had seen war at first hand. When people during the long Vietnam years sang along with Bob Dylan, “The time they are a’ changin” or with Peter, Paul and Mary, “Where have all the flowers gone”, their voices were echoing not just lovely melodies, but were protesting for peace. When we think of it, almost every song we sing either celebrates the peace we feel or cries out in lament because peace is lacking.  Some even do both. The great Christmas carol, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day” was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow one Christmas Day when he could literally hear the guns of the US Civil War, and yet hear also amid the sound of gunfire the church bells that announced the peace of Christ.

 

Sacred music obviously revolves around the fact that Christ is our peace and reconciliation. But when we in Church proclaim “Glory to God in the Highest” or “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world” we are doing far more than simply announcing the peace that Christ has brought to our world. We are engaging not only our voices, but our hearts and our lives, and we are committing ourselves to be witnesses in the struggle for peace.  As walk out through the doors of the church we represent to the world the sacrifice and sacrament of peace that in Christ we have shared.  We are called to become what we have celebrated, to be messengers of peace to the situations and the society around us.

 

How do we do this? Clearly we will not be asked tomorrow to mediate the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, nor will we have the power to decree the destruction of nuclear stockpiles. But we always have the power to be witnesses of peace: to be witnesses first of all to the peace that must be seen to exist within the Church of Christ if it is in turn to be an effective sign and sacrament of peace to the world, to ensure that within the community of the Church there exists only dialogue and concord, and never conflict and division, for the Church will always be judged by humanity for what it is, and not by what it says it is.

 

We know that we can develop approaches that contribute to peace within the family even when there is hurt or disappointment.  Every single one of us, by our own attitude and words, can be a builder of justice, tolerance and understanding within the community around us.  We can also do our part to work for justice in our world, for without justice there can never be peace. We can speak out against land mines and against nuclear weapons. In our own public life as citizens and voters we can call upon government to ensure that we stay within Canada’s great tradition of peacekeeping for which over time so many of our young men and women have given their energies and their lives and have proudly worn, along with the red of our own maple leaf, the blue emblem of the United Nations. We can demand by our voice and our vote that our leaders have the courage to be peacemakers so that Canada may continue to be always the nation that is so well known and respected throughout the world.

 

Above all we must, as Christians, be people of hope as our music is always. When he wrote the words of “I heard the bells”, Longfellow was not naïve or unrealistic. He could hear the noise of the cannon across the river from him and he could write very honestly: “There is no peace on earth, I said, for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men”. But Longfellow could also hear the bells, and his last verse was not just nice poetry, but a real life expression of hope, even in the midst of a reality that seemed hopeless: Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.” Let us too have that same hope, not only in song, but in deed, and even in the midst of adverse realities, so that future generations may apply to Christians in our own age the gracious words of the prophet Isaiah: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns”.

 

Amen.