Fr. Cantalamessa's Homily 12-23

I once worked with a police officer named Officer Law (he was subsequently arrested and imprisoned - long story) and a Customs officer named Lawless.
One of the priests at SJC is Father Day.
There was a doctor where I used to live named Doctor Doctor. (He died in a car wreck.)
There are several people badged at O'Hare with the surname "Paternoster", and there's a family in Chicago named "Oremus." (I always said an Oremus daughter should marry a Paternoster son so she could be Mary Oremus-Paternoster.)
Annnnyhow, Father Cantalamessa is another one of those really awesome surnames, especially for a priest. But back to the matter at hand, here's some of Father's 12-23-06 homily.


The seventh beatitude says: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." Along with the beatitude about the merciful, this one does not speak so much about how we must "be" (poor, afflicted, meek, pure of heart) but about what we must "do." The Greek term "eirenopoioi" means those who work for peace, who "make peace." Not so much, however, in the sense of being reconciled with our enemies as in the sense of helping enemies to be reconciled with each other. "What we are dealing with here are people who so love peace that they have no fear of compromising their own personal peace when they intervene in conflicts to help those who are divided to find peace."[3]

Peacemakers are not synonymous, then, with the peaceful or pacific, that is, tranquil, calm persons who avoid contrariety as much as possible (they are proclaimed blessed by another beatitude, that of the meek); neither are peacemakers synonymous with pacifists, if by pacifists we mean those who are against war (with great frequency, against one of the two sides in a war!) but who do nothing to reconcile the combatants. The most just term is pacifier.

In New Testament times the rulers were called the peacemakers, above all the Roman Empire. Augustus Caesar put world peace as his top accomplishment, which he achieved through military victory (parta victoriis pax). He built the famous Ara pacis, the Altar of Peace, in Rome as a testament of his legacy.

Some have understood the Gospel beatitude to be intentionally opposed to this position and to have pointed to the true peacemakers are the true way in which peace is promoted: through victory, yes, but victory over themselves, not over their enemies, not by destroying the enemy, but by destroying enmity, as Jesus did on the cross (Ephesians 2:16).

Read the whole thing.