June 14, 2010: I Hate War
The “Year of the Priest” ended on the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a concert at the University of North Florida for priests. When I was leaving, I was given a book called, A Priest’s Life: The calling, the Cost, the Joy which was published by the Word Among Us. The preface was by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of Baltimore. He was my bishop while I was on Active Duty in Iraq. Our very own Bishop Victor Galeone is one of the 30 priests who write in this book. I wish to share with you excerpts from Father John Dear, SJ. He was in a movie called “The Narrow Path” and tends to really challenge me to the core of my heart and soul.
“I entered the Jesuits in 1982 and was ordained in 1993. At the time I could never have imagined how this path would take me in so many directions. But of all my many experiences, the days after September 11, 2001, most embody to me what it means to be a priest.
As I wrote in my autobiography, A Persistent Peace, I was living in New York City at the time…
…On September 14, the day after I had assumed my role as coordinator, I ventured to Ground Zero, where my eyes met destruction on a scale beyond imagining…The stench was overpowering…
…Thousands died at the World Trade Center towers…We mourned them all. But in the weeks after September 11th, as the U.S. prepared to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, my friends and I sought a way to carry on Jesus’ peacemaking, pastoral work. We knew that retaliation was not the way of Jesus; that someone needed to stand up and say so; that we had to try to stop the impending wars.
And so during the day, I counseled and consoled grieving relatives of the 9/11 attacks; at night and on weekends, I organized and spoke at antiwar rallies across the nation. For me, it was all one work—the ministry of reconciliation that St. Paul writes about (2 Corinthians 5:19-19)—the priestly ministry of all believers: the task of healing, disarming, and inviting one another to embark anew on the path of gospel nonviolence in the footsteps of the peacemaking Jesus…
…Love your neighbors and love your enemies….
…Violence doesn’t work,” I said, “Violence in response to violence only leads to further violence. War cannot stop terrorism because war is terrorism. War never brings peace…
…We should build schools in Afghanistan, send food and medicine to Iraq, and teach the nonviolence of Jesus around the world. If we did, no one would want to hurt us again. Our nonviolent love would save us and lead us all to a new world without war or violence…
The crowd cheered that day, but the message of peace was usually not well received. But being a priest, as a chancellor once told me, is not a popularity contest. It means telling people that God loves them, that God is a God of love and peace, and that we are called to be people of peace. It means teaching everyone to be nonviolent to themselves, nonviolent to their spouses and children, nonviolent to other church people, and nonviolent to the world; to join the global grassroots movements of nonviolence that are disarming and healing the world.
Priestly peacemaking leads others to turn in prayer to the God of peace, to practice contemplative nonviolence, to allow God to disarm our hearts of the roots of war within us so that we might welcome the risen Jesus’ gift of peace and pursue the end of war.”
Beloved, I say a great big AMEN to Father John Dear. I remember the day our country launched that attack on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 (my birthday). I was entering the dedication of Queen of Peace, Gainesville on the feast of the Holy Rosary. I had no idea that I would be called to the worst battle of the war in Iraq three years later. I would think you were crazy if you told me that I would be walking among 20 graves at Arlington National Cemetery of men I held. The words on the FDR memorial in Washington would never have fazed me had I not seen everything he said beginning with “I HAVE SEEN WAR.…” and ending with, “…I HATE WAR.”
Beloved, we must be passionate about peace. We need to hunger for it more than food itself. We must thirst for it like the words beside every cross in every chapel of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. We must never hate people. We must hate war and love our enemies… There is no person you will ever meet that is not loved by God. Get used to it! God even loves you and me when we don’t love ourselves. What great news that we haven’t always passed on! Tell someone today. Start a movement of love, joy, and peace.
I will let Father John Dear, SJ conclude this article.
“That’s the whole point of being a priest—not to be powerful, not to be in control, not to dominate others or get attention or live in luxury or raise money or administer structures or claim any special privileges. The point is to serve Jesus—to be with him, lead others to him, discover him around us, share him in the Eucharist, and advocate his reign of nonviolence, that new world without war, poverty, nuclear weapons, or global warming.
Priests should try to embody and teach St. Francis’ prayer: ‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.’ That was my experience in those difficult days after September 11th, and it remains my journey today—that where there is hatred, I might sow love; where there is despair and darkness, I might sow hope and light; where there is war, I might sow peace. I can honestly say that my prayer is being answered. Each step on the journey is a blessing of Christ’s peace.” (pp 56-62)
Beloved, I have to chuckle to myself. When I sign my books, I usually write:
Beloved—thanks for taking the journey!
Love, joy, peace,
Father Ron Moses +
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