“If Christ is the Prince of Peace then how do we reconcile these other seemingly contradictory words of Our Lord: ‘Do not think that I come to send peace upon earth, I came not to send peace, but the sword’ and ‘Think you, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no but separation.’ The explanation of these apparent contradictions is to be found in the words he addressed to his apostles the night of the Last Supper in which he made an important distinction between two kinds of peace: ‘My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, do I give unto you’ and ‘These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress, but have confidence, I have overcome the world.’ There is a difference, then, between His Peace and the peace of the world. It is evident from these words that Our Lord offers a peace and a consolation that He alone can confer, a peace that comes from the right ordering of conscience, from justice, charity, love of God and love of neighbor.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Cross and the Beatitudes)
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