Pursuing Peace

Quaere pacem, et sequere eam.   Non tibi dixit, habebis hic pacem: quaere illam, et sequere eam. Quo illam sequor? Quo praecessit. Dominus enim est pax nostra, resurrexit et ascendit in coelum. Quaere pacem, et sequere illam: quia et tu cum surrexeris, hoc mortale mutabitur, et amplecteris pacem, ubi tibi nemo molestus erit. Ibi enim est perfecta pax, ubi non esuries. Nam hic tibi pacem facit panis: subduc panem, et vide quale bellum erit intra viscera tua. Ipsi iusti quomodo gemunt hic, fratres? Ut sciatis quia quaerimus hic pacem, consequemur autem in fine. Sed ex parte hic habeamus, ut ex toto illic habere mereamur. Quid est, ex parte? Concordes simus hic, diligamus proximum quomodo nos. Sic dilige fratrem quomodo teipsum, habe cum illo pacem. Sed non possunt nisi existere rixae aliquae, quomodo inter fratres et inter sanctos exstiterunt, inter Barnabam et Paulum: sed non quae occiderent concordiam, non quae interimerent caritatem. Nam et tibi ipsi resistis aliquando, et tamen non te odisti. Omnis enim quem poenitet aliquid, rixatur secum. Peccavit, redit, irascitur sibimetipsi hoc fecisse, illud commisisse. Rixam ergo secum habet, sed ista rixa ad concordiam tendit. Vide quomodo secum rixetur, et dicat quidam iustus: Quare tristis es, anima mea, et quare conturbas me? Spera in Dominum, quoniam adhuc confitebor illi. Cum dicit animae suae, Quare conturbas me; utique turbabat illum. Volebat forte ipse pati pro Christo, et anima ipsius contristabatur. Et ille qui sciebat et dicebat: Quare tristis es, anima mea, et quare conturbas me; pacem adhuc secum non habebat: sed ex mente haerebat Christo, ut sequeretur illum anima eius, et non illum conturbaret. Ergo quaerite pacem, fratres. Dominus dixit: Haec loquor vobis, ut in me habeatis pacem. Pacem in terra vobis non promitto. In ista vita pax vera non est, nec tranquillitas. Gaudium immortalitatis, societas Angelorum promittitur. Sed quisquis non illam cum hic est quaesierit, non illam habebit cum venerit. Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensis, Enarratio in Psalmum XXXIII Source: Migne PL 37 1105-1106

'Seek peace, and pursue it.' 1  He has not said that you will have peace here, but to seek it and pursue it. Where shall I pursue it? Where it has gone before. For the Lord is our peace, 2 who has risen and ascended into Heaven. 'Seek peace, and pursue it,' because when you have risen, this mortality shall be changed, and you shall embrace peace there where no one will trouble you. For there is perfect peace, where you will not hunger. Here bread gives you peace, but withdraw it and see how your stomach revolts. Do not the righteous groan here, brothers? So that you know that here we seek peace that we find it in the end. But a part here we may have, that the whole there we may have. What is this part? That here we are in harmony, that we love our neighbour as ourselves. So love your brother as yourself and have peace with him. But they who are not able to live unless involved in some dispute, how among brothers and among saints will they live, among Paul and Barnabas? 3 Not with that which kills concord, not which that which destroys charity. Even if sometimes you oppose yourself, you do not hate. Everyone who repents something, he is in dispute with himself. He has sinned, he comes back, he is angry with himself on account of what he has done, that he has done it. Strife he has had with himself, but he has brought this strife to concord. See how he struggles with himself, and let the righteous man say, 'Why are you unhappy, my soul and why do you trouble me? Hope in the Lord because still I confess to him.' 4 When he says to his soul, 'Why do you trouble me,' certainly it vexes him. He wished perhaps to suffer for Christ and his soul was grieved. And he who knew and said, 'Why do you grieve, my soul, and why do you trouble me,' did not yet have peace with himself. But when a mind adheres to Christ, the soul follows and it does not trouble him. Therefore seek peace, brothers. The Lord has said, 'This I say to you, that in me you shall have peace. Peace in the earth I do not promise.' 5 In this life there is no true peace, no tranquility. Immortal joy, association with the angels, is the promise. But whoever does not seek it while he is here, will not have it when He comes. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Enarrations on the Psalms, from Psalm 33 1 Ps 33.15 2 Ephes 2.14 3 Acts 15.39 4 Ps 42.5 5 Jn 16.33