Peace I leave with you. Peace is my farewell gift to you.

"Not as the world gives it, do I give it to you."

Peace!

The Easter gift of the Risen Lord.

BUT not as the world givesi it.

ISIS, North Korea, Africa, Putin... Peace seems such an elusive Spirit.

So our world does not offer great prospects of peace or security. So what are we to do?

Hide our head in the sand? Be Pollyannas?

Or be utter cynics and say "the world is going to hell in a handbasket?"

Or shall we put ALL our hopes in Hillary even though we know she is a flawed candidate? 

And mention "flawed." The Donald" is the Poster Boy for "flawed."

The fact is that all candidates are flawed, as are you and me.

And there is no Saviour but Christ the Lord.

So where does our peace lie?

It must lie in our ultimate hopes for life with the Risen Lord.

In the short term whether it be days or centuries, there will be wars and rumors of wars. People of Good Will can work to forstall them, as they must, but evil has its way of intruding into or lives like some hydra.

In the face of disruption, we are to possess an inner peace, an inner assurance that somehow, some way the Spirit weaves her own way, and Julian of Norwich has it  right:

"All shall be well! All shall be well."

In the first reading today, the Church itself is in conflict. Yet the Spirit stirs in the midst of it.

in an article in Spirit and Life, Sister Joan Gibney OSB writes about this conflict:

"First : God's initiatave is ever present guiding toward greater mercy for all, pushing beyond the boundaries the early church had thought definitive. Faith knows no bounds.

Second: Events eventually become clearer as they are pondered and the stories retold. In Acts Peter retells the Gentile story three times but it becomes clearer to him each time.

Third: Our human decision making sometimes has to catch up with God's.

Fourth: Actions of God, such as surprise can help us re-define what is most important. A crisis, at first unwelcome may lead to growth.

Fifth: Re-definition can be accompanied by conflict and debate. Both are needed for discernment. A lack of peace may start the process; clarification of identity may result. In ACTS the whole Church learned to evangelize according to God's plan which is to save ALL humanity."

This process of discerment, was taken very seriously by American nuns after Vatican II. And it is the process that Pope Francis obviously prefers.

Turmoil can precede it and erupt within it, but its ultimate direction is towards peaceful resolution.