Battling for peace is an oxymoronic truth.

The find the origins of the word “peace” in the common Hebrew greeting shalom. Shalom refers to being intact, complete, and whole, to soundness and welfare. It expressed harmony and communion with God that resulted from the covenant. Shalom refers to communion with God that brings peace, and this communion has a covenantal form. 

Translators of the Bible reinforced this emphasis on peace-as-communion as they utilized the Greek word eirēnē (harmony, concord, tranquility) for shalom, and opted for the Latin pacem (nominative pax) when the Bible was translated again. The root of pacem is pag-, which means “to fasten” — like forming a pact, contract, or, more profoundly, a covenant that forges peace.

St. Augustine would go on to define peace as the “tranquility of order” in Book XIX, chapter 13, of his monumental work City of God. In his own words: “The peace of the Heavenly City is a perfectly ordered and perfectly harmonious fellowship in the enjoyment of God, and a mutual fellowship with God; the peace of the whole universe is the tranquillity of order.”[1] When things are so arranged that justice is done to each and each can work toward the good according to capability, the harmony that arises can properly called “peace.” Notice how, for Augustine, the fundamental order is not spatial or temporal, but relational. In other words, peace does not fundamentally depend on our time or spaces being in order (though these might be the natural outworkings of a rightly ordered life), but on our relationships being in order — beginning with the relationship with God. He echoes the shalom that results from covenantal communion and fidelity to the covenant. Again, we can recall Pope Benedict’s line, “Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed – his relationship with God – then nothing else can be truly in order.” If the relationship with God is disturbed, there can be no peace no matter how orderly the rest of life appears on the surface.

Elsewhere, Ratzinger defines harmony in terms of joy and binds both relationally. He describes joy as the peace or harmony I experience within myself when I accept myself. The problem is, for a whole host of reasons, I do not accept myself. I do not love myself as I ought. Instead, I sin (against God, others, and myself), I believe lies about myself, I am disgusted with certain behaviors and attitudes, and so forth. To accept myself, I have to be accepted by another. Someone else needs to love me in order for me to believe I am loveable. And others do love me. However, no human love fully satisfies the ache of the human heart for an infinite, eternal love. All human loves fall short—a fact that is punctuated by the grave. Yet, when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, to redeem us, that we might be adopted as sons, brought into the new covenant, and abide in the peace and harmony of a rightly ordered relationship with God that allows us to call him “Abba! Father!” (see Gal 4:4–7). In light of God’s love for me, I can love myself and others and God. In light of God’s love for me, I can be peaceful and joyful.[2]

The enemy, the nāhāš, the ancient serpent and dragon, tries to steal this peace. The enemy tries to disrupt and disorder our lives. Life’s battle involves striving to maintain our peace of heart against the enemy who tries to snatch it away. “Very frequently, spiritual combat consists precisely in this: defending one’s peace of heart against the enemy who attempts to steal it from us,” Fr. Jacques Philippe says.[3] To be sure, the whole of the Christian life is a battle (see CCC §409). But you really come under attack when you set out to more faithfully live your vocation as a husband and father. Rooting Yourself in your baptismal identity is the key to winning the battle for peace and the first step in protecting your family from the sneaky snake who tries to steal peace. It’s hard to be an agent of peace for your family when you’ve lost your own peace.

We can think about this with an allegory. Snakes dwell in low areas, awaiting their prey, ready to pounce. One does not find snakes in mountainous regions high above sea level. These low-lying creatures do not like altitude and cannot endure the elements. Hence, they remain below a certain altitude. This is the invisible “snake line” above which you will not find snakes and below which you will. For the sake of our families, we, as husbands and fathers, need to remain well above the nāhāš line and help our families do the same.

If you are interested in taking these principles and applying them to your own life, I’ve put together some reflection questions and an application worksheet.

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[1] Augustine of Hippo, City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (Penguin, 2003), 870.

[2] Here, I am summarizing a magnificent passage from Ratzinger’s Principles of Catholic Theology, 79–81.

[3] Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace, trans. George and Jannic Driscoll (Society of St. Paul, 2002), 11.