May 5, 2026 // Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s Gospel: John 14:27-31a
Reflect on the Word //
Sitting across from my colleague in a bustling café, surrounded by the clink of coffee cups on saucers, the smell of buttery croissants, and the steady murmur of a dozen conversations, I waited for her to speak. “I just feel like I want to run away,” she finally confessed, averting my gaze as she looked down at the tabletop.
I knew the feeling. And although it had been a few years since I had experienced that same restlessness, although I now felt settled in my job and my city, I remembered all too well the temptation lurking beneath those first few painful months of adjustment: I’d be happier, it would be easier, things would be better . . . if I were somewhere else.
I tend to agonize over decisions because I want to choose the option that will guarantee the least suffering (and by that I mean I don’t want any suffering at all). I plan for all contingencies, brace myself for the worst, and when something inevitably goes wrong or I feel the sting of the sorrow I tried so hard to prevent, I consider it a failure on my part to make the right choice. And I want to run.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers us a different way: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27). Peace, given to us. Peace we don’t have to chase. Peace we need only to open our hearts and receive.
Sister, we will experience peace in this life—but it won’t be something we can manufacture if we just make the right choice, the one that defies all suffering and discomfort. True peace isn’t an absence of struggle, or some elusive contentment to be found in the perfect set of circumstances. Peace is a Person, the Person of Christ, Who abides with us always —in every circumstance—and invites us to rest in Him throughout them all.
Relate to the Lord // Stop and welcome the Person of Peace, Jesus Christ, Who is with you now. Welcome His presence and ask Him for the peace only He can bring.
Dr. Sarah Zentner is a bibliophile and “hygge” enthusiast who delights in steaming mugs of tea, freshly baked pastries, the Little Way, and all things true, good, and beautiful. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the Catholic University of America and lives with her toy poodle, JoJo, in Washington, D.C., where she teaches literature at an all-girls Catholic secondary school.
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