A Collect for Peace

Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen.

Is it any wonder that this collect used to be prayed every day during the Office?

“Give to us that peace which the world cannot give.”

Acts of violence will not save us. Bringing the perpetrators, these particular twisted people, to justice, will not save us. Speeches and nightly news commentary — endless opinion — will not save us.

We will still “fear all enemies,” foreign and domestic, external and internal, physical and spiritual.

Without that peace which the world cannot give, we will still live in fear.

I remember my father, in the months before he died, when he was still in the hospital. When I visited him, there were always nurses and staff hanging out near his room. It was because he was at peace. He might have been the only person in the hospital who was not afraid. Everyone wanted to come near to that peace.

That peace and quietness, even in the face of death, is the peace which the world cannot give.

My father knew he would be all right; he knew he would be seeing Jesus face to face. He was delivered from “fear of all enemies,” and we can be, too, through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior.