In his inaugural Mass, Pope Leo XIV calls for peace and unity.

In the Gospel today, Jesus just finished His last supper,

Before going away from His nearest and dearest friends: His Apostles.

He was going, to give His life for us.

But before He left them bodily,

He gave them two gifts –

He gave them Peace, and He gave them His Holy Spirit.

Without His Holy Spirit, there can be no true and lasting peace.

The newly chosen Pope Leo XIV’s very first words of greeting to the world,

From the logia of St. Peter’s Basilica,

Were: Peace be with you all.

But again, this is Chrit’s peace he bids us –

Or, as Jesus Himself says in today’s Gospel –

And we hear some of these words at every Mass –

Right after we pray the Our Father as Jesus taught us –

And before we receive His precious Body and Blood in Holy Communion –

Jesus says:

Peace, I leave with you;

My peace, I give you.

Not as the world gives do I give it to you.

We are celebrating Memorial Day this weekend –

Remembering those who gave their lives in worldly conflicts for our nation –

Giving their lives amidst strife –

So that we may live in peace.

Between Memorial Day,

And today’s Gospel of Jesus’ peace,

I recalled a true story about World War I – mislabeled as the great war –

In part, because it was the first World War –

But also, because they believed it would be the war to end all wars.

Sadly we know that was not true –

Nor shall any worldly war achieve heavenly peace.

Millions of young live were wrecked by this conflict.

But even amidst the darkness of it all –

On Christmas Eve – (1914)

There was a kind of informal truce.

One lone French soldier – an opera singer from Paris –

Began to plaintively sing out the hymn: O Holy Night.

And others – on both sides joined their voices together.

These enemies crawled out of their abysmal trenches –

Slogged through the mire of the battlefield –

Pried open passageways in the barbed wire –

And came together in the buffer zone famously called, no man’s land.

There, they buried their dead, side by side.

They saw their own humanity in each other’s faces as they drew near.

Faces they could not see when mired in their trenches –

Shooting at one another.

A German officer gave his British counterpart a Victoria Cross and a letter,

That a fallen English captain had on his body behind enemy lines.

The British officer showed his gratitude by gifting the German his silk scarf.

And many exchanges of tokens and gestures of human kindness ensued.

No man’s land became every man’s land –

When these enemies laid down their arms and opened their hearts –

Baring and bowing their heads in prayer –

United by their common humanity –

Setting aside their destructive focus on what divided them.

Sadly – as each of us tends to do when we forget the Christ that binds us together –

Christmas day passes into night –

And those soldiers reluctantly crawl back into their trenches –

The trenches of fear and pride and vengeance and death –

But once again –

A lone voice cries out –

Like the prophetic voice of God crying out in the wilderness –

Singing: Silent Night – Holy Night –

All is calm – All is bright.

Everyone knew this hymn –

Regardless of language –

And the masses sang out as one.

And for just a splinter of time –

They remembered their common humanity –

Their common dignity as fellow children of God.

At every Mass –

Where the veil between heaven and earth is pulled back –

We remember the One true hero –

Our Savior –

Sleeping so gently in the glory of His manger –

Only to enter into our dark trenches –

The trenches of fear and prejudice –

Of self-absorption and superiority, and divisiveness,

And exclusion of others –

Those very others that Christ gave His life for on the Cross.

May we be open to the Holy Spirit Christ gave to those 12 Apostles,

Before going to His cross in today’s Gospel.

Receive His spirit of unity and peace –

The spirit of love and obedience to the law of Love –

Even if it means we lose our worldly lives –

Only to gain heaven itself.

And let us make our Church an every man’s land – every person’s land –

Amidst all the battles and barbed wire and muddy trenches of our hearts.

Catholic means universal –

And this New Jerusalem is for all and any who would let God

Dwell in their hearts.

May we have eyes and hearts seeking our common ground –

Letting go of a thousand deaths we endure by living in fear of the unfamiliar.

Look into the face of the stranger – and even the enemy –

And let Christ shine His light there.

The peace the world gives is only mere pacification.

Or even being numbed by material comfort –

Or a false sense of security that is often used to justify the building of trenches.

But the peace Christ gives is an inner calm –

A surety of heart –

It empowers us to truly live freely –

To dare to live fully and boldly, for Christ to dwell in each of us.

And even if we die –

It is – unlike for the coward’s 1000 deaths –

It is but once.

And even that once is but the gateway to an ever richer life.

Coward or hero – we are all afraid at times.

But the coward lets the fear crush them,

While the hero climbs through the fear with Christ steadying his heart,

With His noble love.

So let us remember our beloved fallen heroes,

But above all remember the Hero –

The savior of the world from itself –

And be that voice in the wilderness crying out past our dark trenches –

Drawing all souls into Christ’s peace.

Letting His light shine on the faces of our enemies and the outcasts –

Working to be saved by that light –

To be reconciled –

Looking past the divisions we fearfully and pridefully erect –

And accepting our greater commonality –

As beloved children of God –

The God who saves us in Jesus Christ –

And unites us as living temples of His Holy Spirit.