We believe in peace always

Every day for the rest of my life I can change, I can try, I can desire it with all my strength until I can say about myself: I have disarmed myself.
I no longer know competition with anything or anyone. I abolished it.
I no longer look a person in the eyes or in the dress, but in the heart.
There I can find his richness that makes me rich, his goodness that edifies me, his wickedness that has no place in me. I disarmed myself of my time, of my money.
I have disarmed myself of enemies. I do not need them. I found myself happy to serve, happy to listen, happy to be corrected. Happy to be God's, to have let myself be found by him, to feel like I belong to him and to feel loved.
I'm simply a person.
A friend.

This page of the Sermig Rule often resonates these days. It resonates in the courtyard of the Arsenal of Peace which has become a meeting point for women and men of good will who come together for silence, prayer and fasting.
People gather around a large brazier burning in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by signs with the names of the nations at war.
Not just Israel and Palestine, not just Ukraine, but dozens of nations and territories that no longer make the news and never make it to the front page, where war is at home, where terrorism and violence rule. People of different denominations and faiths, believers and non-believers, gather with us, united by the desire for peace and the will to seek it. Never alone, but together.

There is a need to unite to bring out the hope, dormant in the heart, from each other. We need to be together to believe that, despite everything, peace is possible.

The desire that unites us is the hope that wisdom will prevail in the choices of governments involved in wars, that the great people of the Earth will be illuminated by a fire that guides them to choices of peace. The desire that millions of women, men, children, young people, elderly people, defenseless civilians are finally warmed by a fire of peace which is a good life for all.

We are also united by the desire to resist discouragement, to continue to believe in peace, despite everything. Resist and strengthen our commitment to disarm.
Eliminate all competition, go beyond distrust of others, overcome the thought of having an enemy to defend oneself from, eliminate at the root the feeling of resentment for the wrong suffered, of hatred for those who have hurt me. Simply being people, friends in diversity and respect, in listening to each other, capable of recognizing each other as brothers and capable of creating fraternity.

Thinking of people mowed down by the adversary's weapons makes us say that at least we who are at peace, who can gather to pray, who can choose to fast for a day, at least we can and must choose to love each other, to overcome our little contrasts, our small divisions to say with facts that living together is possible, that there is the possibility of creating a universal brotherhood.
If we cannot do it with the motivations we have, with the Gospel which offers us a different lifestyle, how can we think that there is peace between the nations?

No one can withdraw from the work of peace. We are all personally responsible for it and we can all pray for good to prevail. It is up to us to choose an "unarmed" lifestyle that also strengthens a solid mentality of peace among young people to give humanity a future, as Ernesto summarized: «There will be peace when man's life is respected, welcomed, loved always, from conception to death, always with the same love, and in every part of the world."

Rosanna Tabasso
NP November 2023

I BELIEVE IN PEACE ALWAYS,
even when the weapons seem
be the only solution.

I BELIEVE IN PEACE ALWAYS,
the only condition in which man can live
and continue to hope for the future.

I BELIEVE IN PEACE ALWAYS,
because the war caused millions of deaths,
destruction and inhuman tragedies.

I BELIEVE IN PEACE ALWAYS,
because today's war,
today's violence,
they want to become our tomorrow.
But there may not be a tomorrow.

I BELIEVE IN PEACE ALWAYS,
a peace that starts from yes and no
that we are capable of saying,
from our responsibility,
from our choices.
I believe in a peace in which
the concrete commitment of many
help everyone understand that the real enemy is hate
and that our future is defended with peace.

I BELIEVE IN PEACE ALWAYS,
but it's no longer enough to talk about peace,
you need to choose,
use our creativity and humanity,
so that the brother and sister we meet
may they find a friendly land in us.
I believe in peace always,
because peace has me, it has you.

Ernesto Olivero
Arsenal of Peace, 27 October 2023