(Jn 14:27-31)
In the Gospels, Christ's Peace-Shalôm is an emancipation nod from humiliation and rejection; assumed and reinterpreted in order to the imperative of the Apostolic Proclamation.
It creates a new situation.
And indeed, the 'I Go and Come to you' (v.28) is a Semitic endiad: two statements joined together, referring to the same generative, vital occurrence of death and complete life.
The expression-event is not such that it becomes subject to conditions.
The arc of the Lord's earthly ministry comes to an end; a Covenant is lit.
A time of widespread Word and action, with overall results; of new fathers and mothers, new Creation.
In short, the Peace of Jesus is not a state, but a relationship.
Full realisation of the human - a condition no longer balanced, according to convention.
Rather, fulfilment recalibrated to the measure of Christ in Person, in the Hour of Birth.
On the lips of Jesus, «Shalôm» [excellence and overcoming of the ancient blessings] takes on the features of its proper, Messianic meaning.
Presence of 'anointing'. Judgement of the Gospels, and essential Announcement (cf. Lk 10:5).
Breadth of well-being: without this precious reading code, the Word of the Lord remains incomprehensible, and the Mission to which we are sent becomes prey to obsessions, the most sloppy, inauthentic ones.
In the territories of the empire the Pax Romana had triumphalistic traits - it was synonymous with violence, competition, repression of rebels.
As an armed truce, it was the guarantor of a prosperous economy, but secured in its social dimension only by inequalities, especially through a vast slave base.
The Peace that Jesus introduces is not just any wish, of normal expected improvements, but the transmission of his own Person.
Such propensity, vicissitude, and priceless Friendship, spur us on to a complete rearrangement, reconfiguration, reorganisation of all life.
And it often breaks down our existence, in order to ravage its circumstance quietism.
In our language, we would perhaps speak of Happiness and new public order.
Being the secret desire of each one, no difficulty can extinguish its promise and power of fulfilment (v.30).
Shalôm is fullness of saved existence, "success" in our journey of flourishing through a thousand undertakings.
Shalôm is perfection and complete joy, fulfilment of desires.
Victory of the Covenant between God and the people. Endless attunement and communion between the innate impulse of our particular essence and the fulfilment of hopes.
Success of the Alliance between soul impulse and evolutionary achievements experienced in real life.
Shalôm - full realization of humanity rediscovering itself - indicates vital and complete totality of every aspiration.
Qualities of new relationships arising from this: the supreme good of an in-act Presence, entrusted to us.
[Tuesday 5th wk. in Easter, May 20, 2025]
