Please read the passage before the homily.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said this about the Civil War. Jesus said it about the accusation that Jesus was working for Satan. We can also say it about our world today.
War has broken out in Ukraine with Russia. War has broken out in the Holy Land between Israel and Hamas over the Gaza Strip.
We have for a long time held to a theory about a just war. A war, no matter how just, still pits human against human. Defeat of one set of humans by another is a defeat for the whole human race.
Someone has not suggested that we no longer teach the conditions for just war. We should instead be pushing for a just peace. What are the conditions in which peace can flourish?
How can Ukraine and Russia live with a just peace? What must Israel and Hamas do in order to live in a just peace? The North won our Civil War, but the whole nation still suffers the defeat of the South: what must Democrats and Republicans, the far right and the far left, the liberals and the conservatives, the other sets of opposites do in order to live in a just peace?
In a just war, kingdoms fight against kingdoms, and both lose. In a just peace, kingdoms work with one another and both win.
Those who are not against war are against peace. Those who do not gather peace with Jesus scatter the destruction of war.