Every Good and Perfect Peace

All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change. // James 1:17

Our readings today give the remedy for lack of peace. We all experience a myriad of forces tugging and pushing us from different directions. This is especially true in times of crisis.

I was tempted to chase myself with lists of “shoulds” in the weeks and months when my parents were seriously ill and after my dad died. But the Lord’s grace was so palpably abundant in those days especially through Our Lady and the intercession of the Saints. And I remembered that my confessor had told me that his novice master used to say, “Don’t should all over me.”

The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Most Holy Rosary were totally transformed for me in those weeks and months. They pulsated with new life and meaning. The Mass and the Rosary with the richness of Sacred Scripture and Our Lord’s True Presence were truly immovable guideposts. The waves of grief and questions threatened to disorient my heart, but there, amid another of life’s storms, I discovered that in God “there is no alteration or shadow caused by change” (James 1:17). God does not change. I am the one who needs to change.

But why is it so difficult to change? The reason it is difficult to change is the same reason peace can be elusive. I don’t change or have peace because I “love” too many things.

Our readings today unveil the key to transformation in Christ and how to obtain peace. Sister, may we persevere in love and fidelity in times of temptation and turmoil as Saint James encourages in the First Reading. May we experience the blessedness of those who allow themselves to be instructed by the Lord as in the Responsorial Psalm. And may we seek only the Lord Jesus and no other master as He warns in the Gospel Reading.

Then we will experience the superabundant fullness of life which Our Lord promises in the Gospel Acclamation, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord; and my Father will love him and we will come to him” (John 14:23).

God does not change. // @srmariakimClick to tweet

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