“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14-27) These word spoken by Christ at the Last Supper just before His Passion was about to begin, are of extreme relevance today when our developed world keeps promising so much but, alas, delivering so little. The pursuit of happiness had been and always will be the ultimate goal that men and women everywhere aspire to, even if they are not completely aware that this is what mainly lies behind their thoughts and actions. Yet happiness frequently proves to be a mirage. Power, money, lust often do not deliver the joy and certainly not the serenity they have promised to give, but leave solely a bitter taste and anguish which we try to assuage by pursuing even more power, ambition, unbridled passions, and so on.

Christianity has been described as a religion that imposes mainly a series of prohibitions and injunctions. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not, as is often wrongly described, the religion of the book like the other monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam, are sometimes referred to. Christianity is a person, Jesus Christ, God made Man. The latter made it clear that He is the sole answer to all the problems that beset mankind. For someone to proclaim such words has perforce to be, as has been said, either, “Impostor, madman or Lord.”

Following Christ means also imitating Him in our lives despite our frailties and limitations. It does not mean that Christians have the answer to all the problems that trouble men and women in their daily lives. They have faith, however in someone who has the answer to human anguish because He Himself is the answer. While on earth He suffered although, being God, there was certainly no need for Him to do so. He did this in order to redeem us from sin which, in His own words, “renders us slaves” and therefore sad and joyless and without hope.

It can truly be affirmed that nobody is freer than the Christian who strives to live with all his might the precepts of the Gospel. “The truth will make you free.” Indeed so it is and moreover the Christian also harbours within himself that virtue, which has become such a rare commodity in our society today – hope. To be a Christian is to cherish hope for one’s life while on earth even amid the trials and tribulations and not just for that reward in another life which Christ promised to those who follow Him. For those who believe in Christ, life therefore takes on a totally different perspective. There is no such thing as meaningless suffering and recalling Christ’s words at the beginning of this letter, we experience a peace that translates itself into joy, even when overcome by profound grief such as the loss of a loved one.

This is where the happiness that the world gives and that which Christ gives part ways. Worldly joys, even that most beautiful of all, on a purely human level, such as the birth of a child, will always be accompanied by worries and problems. Christians experience anguish and a fear of death and suffering as everybody else does. But why should this not be so, since their Lord Himself trembled and sweated blood at the thought of death and its accompanying pain? Christ, knowing our frailties and sinfulness, left us a Church, which, through her sacraments strengthens us in this our journey towards eternity. St Augustine, who knew what the pursuit of worldly pleasures were, phrased beautifully all that has been written above in the following words, “O God, thou has made us for Thee and our hearts will never rest unless they rest in Thee.” Let us deeply ponder these words unless we want our life on earth to be an empty, desperate, joyless journey towards nothingness.

Jacqueline Calleja

BALZAN