Resist Hopelessness with the Force of Love
by Susan Francois, CSJP
Our Congregation’s spirituality has been rooted in a shared desire for peace from our founding. Indeed Margaret Anna Cusack, known in community as Mother Francis Clare, hoped that “the very name Sisters of Peace” would inspire a desire and love for it among the new community.
From the very beginning, this desire for peace has also been grounded in the reality of the modern world. “You will hope, if God blesses your work” Bishop Edward Gilpin Bagshawe of Nottingham told the first sisters who professed vows in 1884, “to sow the seeds of peace in modern society.” He encouraged the new community to seek peace “in the midst of sin, turmoil, and restless anxiety of this modern world.”
His words might seem even more relevant today in our early 21st Century context, where it seems as if hopelessness reigns, that hate trumps love, and that profit prevails over common good. Yet, this is the mission field to which those who desire peace are called to be present, to foster right relationship, and to resist forces counter to the building up of beloved community.
This is the same type of landscape that Jesus observed when he preached blessings and woes in the Sermon on the Mount. In her 1874 work, Book of the Blessed Ones, Margaret Anna explored what it means to be a Christian in her day in light of the Beatitudes.
“The nations are involved in misery, their countries are desolated, their families are ruined, their blood is poured forth on every side. And why? Because the teachings of the All-merciful are condemned, are neglected, are forgotten.” She saw a lack of charity in public discourse. She observed how economic forces had priority over the common rights of people.
Margaret Anna looked to Jesus and the Beatitudes for clues on how to respond to such a world. “He has told us again and yet again that we are not to live, or think, or act, or speak like the world.” In other words, if we are to follow Jesus, we are to resist the evils which lead to violence, division, and despair. “Force was no longer to be the rule,” she concluded, “except, indeed, the force of love.”
Is it any wonder that the new community turned to loving action in response to the anxieties of the modern world? They worked directly with the poor and in their own homes and met the needs of their day, providing education, health care, and social services. They resisted the hopelessness in their midst through the force of love, as did the women and lay collaborators who followed in their footsteps. People of peace can draw comfort (and challenge) from the fact that followers of Jesus have been resisting the evils and social sins of their day ever since he preached his blessings to peacemakers.
The key is to remember that, in the end, it all comes down to love—love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self. It is a love that does not exclude, that builds up rather than tears down, and that builds bridges rather than walls.
If we desire peace, we too must resist hopelessness. We too must choose the force of love. In the words of Margaret Anna: “And we also, my pilgrim friends, may go about the Galilee of this world, and preach ‘the gospel of the kingdom.’ It is a gospel of peace, it is a gospel of love, it is a gospel of mercy; it is a gospel for the poor, for the little ones, who live near to the Heart of God.”
This article appeared in the Spring 2018 issues of Living Peace.