There is a longing in the hearts of all who follow the Charity way to become the peace we yearn for. Vincent, Louise, Elizabeth Ann lived lives of amazing peace in the midst of turmoil, strife, war. What was their secret? They included everyone and everything within the circles of their lives. They were peace to all they encountered.
We pray in the first decades of a millennium already marked with the blood of countless victims of terror, famine, genocide: Blessed Peacemaker, come to our aid as we struggle with all the ways we lack peace in our own hearts and homes. Guide us to that place deep within where you wait for us in the silence; where your gift of peace resides. Lamb of God, dona nobis pacem!

–Sr. Mary McCormick, SC, Belonging

Psalm 9
I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of your wonderful deeds,
And because of these deeds, I dare to hope
That the prayer I now make will find fulfillment.
It is not for the destruction of my enemies that I pray,
But for the destruction of enmity.
Root out the canker within us that makes us resist one another.
You are a stronghold, O Lord, to the oppressed.
Let your strength impel us, when we have become strong,
Not to turn the tables on our oppressors.
Help us rather, by the force of our commitment
To eradicate from the heart of every [one]
Any desire to exploit [one another].
May the needy no longer be forgotten;
May the hope of the poor not perish forever.

–Sr. Rose Agnes MacCauley, SC, Vision 20/20 (1971), adapted

The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace. (James 3:18)

We are called to be women of healing,
sensitive to the wounds of persons and to the social evils of our times.
We are called to use every means in our power to reconcile and bring into unity
persons and groups who are alienated or divided. (Constitution, SCNY, #1.4)

I beg you to keep me in this silence, O God,
so that I may learn from it the word of your peace
and the word of your mercy and your word of gentleness to the world,
and that through me, perhaps, your word of peace may make itself heard
where it has not been possible for anyone to hear it for a long time.

—Thomas Merton

“Peace, justice and the preservation of creation are three absolutely interconnected themes, which cannot be separated and treated individually…” (#92)
Any technical solution which science claims to offer will be powerless to solve
the se¬rious problems of our world if humanity loses its compass….Believers themselves….need to be encouraged to be ever open to God’s grace and to draw constantly from their deep¬est convictions about love, justice and peace. If a mistaken understanding of our own principles has at times led us to justify mistreating nature, to exercise tyranny over creation, to engage in war, injustice and acts of violence, we believers should acknowledge that by so doing we were not faithful to the treasures of wisdom which we have been called to protect and preserve. (#200)

The Earth Charter [2000] asked us to leave be¬hind a period of self-destruction and make a new start, but we have not as yet developed a universal awareness needed to achieve this. Here, I would echo that courageous challenge: “As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning… Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quick¬ening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life”. (#207)

Peace…is much more than the absence of war. Inner peace is closely related to care for ecology and for the common good because, lived out authentically, it is reflected in a balanced lifestyle together with a capacity for wonder which takes us to a deeper understanding of life. (#225)

—Pope Francis, Encyclical Laudato Si (2015)