A loving Spirit can guide us throughout our lives. Such a Spirit can especially guide us as peacemakers through conflict. Dirk Willems was guided by such a Spirit, as was Ben Salmon, Medgar Evers, Maura Clark, Jean Donavan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kozel. Like Jesus, these disciples gave witness to the Spirit of truth and its peace. They did so amidst people and circumstances that were desperate to kill the virtue and those exemplifying it.
How do we memorialize these individuals and so many other brave souls lead by the Spirit of truth and its peace? How do we remember Honoratus of Arles, Genevieve, Peter Waldo, Bartolome De Las Casas, Sojourner Truth, Mother Maria Skobtsova, Hans and Sophie Scholl, Chico Mendez, Christian de Chergé, and Margaret Hassan? Do we know these brave spirits of truth? Do we respect their witness? Do we do so to the same degree we know and honor history’s generals who lie to us about war. We know so much of the history of war and its duplicitous fighters and not enough of the history of peace and its truth tellers.
The truthful voice, led by the Spirit, is sometimes spoken in solitary whispers, on the margins of society, in prison cells, and refugee camps. It is sometimes spoken loudly on street corners of violence infested cities, at the heart of R.O.T.C. infiltrated schools, amidst the conflict of labor disputes and the turmoil of occupation. For disciples, it is always spoken as the Spirit of Christ.
Prayer: Spirit of Truth, you are my guide.
Question: Who are the truthtellers and peacemakers memorialized by my family, friends, town, faith community?
May 26, 2013 Gospel John 16:12-15 Feast of the Holy Trinity / Memorial Day Weekend