Peace be with you
This weekend I am participating in a retreat at a remote location overlooking the ocean. And last evening the couple presenting reflected on opening the closed doors of our lives. As I read this week’s Gospel, I immediately connected that Jesus’ disciples were behind closed doors themselves:- John 20: 19-31 ‘…the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’.
Jesus, aware of their anxiety and fear, opens the engagement with the phrase ‘Peace be with you,’ offering them a deep inner tranquility. In the same way, he comes into the closed, fearful spaces of our lives—not with condemnation, but with peace, assurance, and the invitation to trust. His presence transforms their fear into joy, and their isolation into companionship.
I find myself reflecting on the doors of my life I still keep closed, and how I long for Jesus to enter and speak his peace. I think that at the ripening age of 69 years and after many instances of conversion and transformation I am yet to completely let go and let God. In many ways I am still guarded and fearful.
Old habits of self-protection linger, shaped by childhood insecurity. There are rooms within me where I still hesitate to fully open the doors —places marked by uncertainty, by the fear of vulnerability, by the reluctance to surrender control.
Yet, even as I recognize these closed spaces, I also feel a stirring of hope as I read this Gospel passage, over the course of the retreat. Perhaps the grace of this moment is not in having every door open, but in recognizing that Jesus can enter behind closed doors.
The peace that Jesus brings is unlike anything the world negotiates or secures through treaties, ceasefires, or the bargaining of resources. It is not a fragile peace born of fear or compromise, but a deep, enduring peace rooted in fraternity, compassion, and mercy.
It is the peace of hearts that recognize each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. The peace that flows from seeing Christ within each other. This peace does not merely silence conflict; it transforms it, calling us into deeper fellowship with one another and with God.
Our beloved Pope Francis reminds us that this peace must also extend to our relationship with the environment and all of creation, recognizing that everything is interconnected and that true peace embraces the whole of life.
Friend, I invite you to examine the closed doors of our hearts and lives, may we receive this peace anew — a peace that heals, unites, and sends us forth as instruments of God’s tender love in the world.