Meditation on Mt 26, 51-54

The passage we listened to from the Gospel of Matthew carries us to the Mount of Olives. The hour had come for Jesus to pass from this world to the Father. It is a difficult time, an agonic hour. Love and violence were about to face each other in their last, final struggle. Jesus is prostrated, anguish has driven him to the ground, and thrice he prays, �My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!�. Jesus never doubts the love of the Father. Even in such a dark hour his only certainty was the Father�s love. Jesus knows well that he will receive help from the Father alone. And with the strength that comes to him from prayer, he stands and walks towards Judas who has come to arrest him like a bandit, with a crowd of people armed with swords and clubs; but they are actually afraid of him, they fear this meek man who does not run away and walks toward them.

The disciples, however, who are on Jesus� side, facing �this large crowd with swords and clubs�, are seized by fear. One of them draws his sword and strikes the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear. Fear and rage have the upper hand in the heart of the disciple and make him use a sword to defend Jesus. Jesus, however, does not accept this kind of defence, even though it could have seemed legitimate in such an hour. Even shortly before, according to the Gospel of Luke, while Jesus was leaving the Cenacle, he had rebuked his disciples who had brought two swords to him, curtly saying �It is enough!�. And now that one of them has used a sword, Jesus scolds him sorely: �Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword�. Jesus, who was exhausted and sweating blood only moments before, now utters these words with a serene strength. It is the strength that the meek receive from God. That is why Jesus had said, �Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth�. Perhaps, as he lay on the ground in anguish, the words of the psalms had come to his lips, inviting believers to rely on God alone. That sword raised to defend him, actually caused offence to him. It causes offence to the Father and it causes offence to Jesus himself, it even offends those who use it. Violence never defends and always causes offence. Jesus has no enemy to offend; to him everyone is a brother, or a sister to love. That is why violence and the Gospel never meet: one rules out the other. Jesus, meek and humble in heart, does not even hate those who persecute him, on the contrary he calls �friend� the one who conspires against him and betrays him. When he sees Judas approach him to give him the kiss of betrayal, he calls him �friend�. Indeed, the attitude of Jesus toward Judas is the highest image of friendship and non-violence, the very highest of all.

This Gospel of peace has been passed down to us. It is a precious inheritance that the world has not and that we are called to live in this time of ours. Dear sisters and dear brothers, even the beginning of this new millennium is a grave hour and it demands vigilance and prayer. Woe to the sleepiness of the selfish that seizes the three in the Gethsemane, woe to those who fall into the clutches of fear, like that servant. Indeed, everything seems to come together so that we let ourselves be overcome by passions, ethnicism, nationalism, and warmongering, miserably and tragically wasting the great gift of peace. In this hour we Christians are called to gather even more tightly around Jesus, to welcome his peace, to preserve it and bear witness to it. And indeed peace needs to be acquired and safeguarded. We know well that being Christians does not protect us from being intoxicated by the passions of the world. Often people are imprisoned by fear and self-centred thoughts that put the witness of peace at the bottom of their list of priorities. And we should ask ourselves if the divisions among Christians risk to make us accomplices of violence and conflicts. Our communion, on the contrary, is the good leaven of peace among peoples. It is what the great ecumenical patriarch Athenagoras once said: �Churches as sisters, peoples as brothers�.

In these days, the Spirit of the Lord has encouraged us to be more audacious on the path of brotherhood, because Christian communities may be a place of fresh air, unpolluted and free from the intoxication of hatred and violence. We are called to show that nothing is greater than peace, and nothing is worse that the folly of violence. In a difficult hour for Europe, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, �Christ makes the human being not only good, but also strong. This strength is not haughtiness, nor aggressiveness or arrogance, [...] it is the strength of love�. Sisters and brothers, we are all entrusted with this extraordinary heritage of peace. It is the heritage of Jesus, who gave his life for the Gospel of love and peace.