Building Peace with Justice

Building Peace with Justice is a brief, weekly bulletin reflection on Catholic social teaching written by members of a Public Policy Sub-committee in the Diocese of Rochester.

For bulletins on February 8, 2009
In our Sunday readings, Job, Paul, Peter’s mother-in-law, and Jesus teach us the power of merely attending to what is at hand, to what we can do to improve the health of our communities. Grand gesture is set aside in favor of real service.

Twenty-five years ago the U.S. Catholic Bishop’s document, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, proclaimed the same wisdom:

Let us have the courage to believe in the bright future and in a God who wills it for us - not a perfect world, but a better one. The perfect world, we Christians believe, is beyond the horizon, in an endless eternity where God will be all in all. But a better world is here for human hands and hearts and minds to make. (#337)

Reflection: We take pride in our sense of perfection. Can we also take pride in doing something that is imperfect but good?