Dona Nobis Pacem 2011

Last year I was skeptical with the whole idea of peace on earth. This year I'm not thinking about global peace, but more about inner peace and touching the lives of those near us. If I try to think of the possibility of global peace, I feel daunted and discouraged, but if I focus on inner peace and trying to uphold peace at work, in my household, in my daily life, I feel that it's something achievable.

Lately I've been reading Jean Vanier's books and they've struck many chords within me. Thus it's no surprise that my peace globe is inspired by one of his quotes. :-D



Vanier talked and wrote a lot about pain, brokenness, suffering and recognizing them within ourselves. Here let me quote something else that he wrote:

As we approach people in pain, they reveal to us our pain and brokenness. We are not an elite. We need help. We need the help of Jesus and of sister and brothers in community; we need to talk to wise, listening, and compassionate hearts who can help us to assume all that is broken within us and to find wholeness. We become free when we accept ourselves as we are, cry out for help, and use wisely all that we are to build peace. (A Rebel for Peace, page 134-5)

So let's join hands together for peace...one ripple at a time...one step at a time...in this vast ocean of life...:-D

Some Nice Quotes

Taken from Jean Vanier's book entitled "Befriending the Stranger":

When I was living in the Forestiere, I was given a text by Carl Jung...It was a letter he had written to a young Christian woman...

I admire Christians,
because when you see someone who is hungry or thirsty,
you see Jesus.

When you welcome a stranger, someone who is "strange",
you welcome Jesus.

When you clothe someone who is naked, you clothe Jesus.

What I don't understand, however,
is that Christians never seem to recognize Jesus in their own poverty.

You always want to do good to the poor outside you
and at the same time you deny the poor person living inside you.

Why can't you see Jesus in your own poverty,
in your own hunger and thirst?

In all that is "strange" inside you:
in the violence and the anguish that are beyond your control!

You are called to welcome all this, not to deny its existence,
but to accept that it is there and to meet Jesus there.

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