On the Road to Peace

A few years ago, Daniel Berrigan and I celebrated Easter in a New York park with a few Jesuit friends. We held a small liturgy and a picnic. After reading a Gospel account of the resurrection, we sat a few moments in silence. Then I said, "I'm amazed Jesus came back at all. He had been betrayed, denied, abandoned, arrested, jailed, tortured and executed, and yet he came back peaceably, forgiving everyone generously, punishing no one. He didn't get angry at them -- he proceeded to make them breakfast!"

G'day from Down Under! I've been on the road in Australia for a month now, from Sydney on the east coast to Perth on the west, then about face and back again. I spoke in Brisbane on the east coast, and down south in Melbourne on Port Phillip Bay, and Adelaide on the Gulf of St. Vincent, and Canberra, the inland capital, as well as Townsville, way up north in the tropics, across from Magnetic Island and the Great Barrier Reef. And southernmost of all, somewhere near Antartica in Hobart on the gorgeous island of Tasmania, with other stops in between.

Probably little surprise, but I'm a fan of movies with a message for justice and peace, films such as "Gandhi," "The Mission," "In the Name of the Father," "Missing," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Babette's Feast," "Dead Man Walking," "Erin Brokovich," "Silkwood," "Cry Freedom," "Philadelphia," "North Country," "Testament," "Veronica Guerin," and "Thirteen Days." Seeing that Oscar season is upon us, it occurred to me to give two thumbs up to one of my favorites, "Sophie Scholl."

The prophet Isaiah wrote long ago that the nations of the world must one day climb the mountain of God. There, on the mountaintop, God will instruct them in God's ways. They will learn what God wants them to do. Then, they will proceed back down the mountain, where they will immediately dismantle their weapons, share their resources with one another and live in peace one another and all creation (Isaiah 2:2-5).

When I first met Daniel Berrigan, I wanted his advice about the life that lay ahead for me, but I didn't know exactly what to say. "What's the point of all this?" I finally asked him.

Dan took my awkward question seriously. "All we have to do is make our lives fit into the story of Jesus," he said. "We have to get our lives to make sense in light of the Gospel."