Becoming People of Peace in an Anxious World
We are living in anxious times. Many people are carrying more than they say. There is tension in our country, tension in our communities, tension in families, and often tension within our own hearts. We hear rumours, warnings, angry words, political noise, economic fears, and stories of violence. Even when nothing has happened directly to us, our bodies can still carry the weight of it. We become alert, guarded, tired, and sometimes suspicious of one another.
Into this kind of world, the call of Christ does not ask us to pretend that everything is fine. Christian peace does not grow from denial or from turning away from suffering. It does not ask us to keep quiet simply because conflict is uncomfortable, nor does it rest on a thin smile covering a frightened heart.
The peace of Christ is deeper than that. It is a way of being formed by God so that fear does not become our master.
Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” He speaks these words not in a calm moment, but on the night before his suffering. He does not offer peace as an escape from trouble, but as a gift strong enough to hold us within it. His peace does not remove every storm; instead, it teaches the heart where to stand when the storm comes.
This is deeply Franciscan. St Francis lived in a world marked by violence, division, illness, poverty, and conflict within the Church. His peace did not come from a peaceful environment, but from allowing Christ to shape him from within. It was not weakness or passivity, but a disciplined, prayerful, and courageous way of living.
To become people of peace is not simply to want peace around us. It is to allow peace to be formed within us.
That formation begins with honesty. We cannot become peaceful by pretending we are not afraid, and God does not ask us to hide our anxiety behind religious words. Prayer begins where we are. If we are afraid, we bring our fear; if we are angry, we bring our anger; if we are exhausted, we bring our exhaustion; if we are confused, we bring our confusion. It is the honest heart that God can begin to heal.
Peace also grows when we learn to slow our reactions. Anxiety pushes us toward speed, urging us to forward the message, repeat the rumour, assume the worst, speak sharply, and prepare for enemies. Yet the Spirit moves differently, often more gently and deliberately, inviting us to pause, to breathe, to pray, and to listen. In that space, we begin to ask, “What is mine to carry, and what must I entrust to God?”
This does not mean we become careless, nor does it mean that peace is the same as being naïve. Rather, we are called to remain wise, alert, and responsible without allowing ourselves to become hardened. We can take necessary precautions without surrendering our souls to fear, speak the truth without adding cruelty, and name what is wrong without losing sight of the image of God in others.
That may be one of the great spiritual tasks of our time: to resist becoming hard.
When life feels unsafe, it is easy for our hearts to harden, to begin dividing the world into “our people” and “those people,” and to let fear determine who deserves our compassion. Yet Christ continually calls us back to a wider mercy, not a foolish or sentimental mercy, but one with a spine, a mercy that can stand firmly in the truth while still refusing hatred.
Churches are called to be communities where peace is practised, not merely preached, and this means learning to speak gently, to disagree honestly, to forgive repeatedly, and to carry one another’s burdens, while also refusing to feed panic, choosing instead to check on the vulnerable and to pray for our communities, including those we fear, those we do not understand, and those with whom we disagree.
Peace becomes visible in small choices, in a calm word, in a truthful conversation, in refusing to pass on a rumour, in pausing to pray before reacting, in extending a hand across difference, in choosing not to pass anxiety on to the next person, and in being willing to listen before judging; these small choices are not small in the Kingdom of God, but are signs of another way of living.
For those of us shaped by Franciscan spirituality, this is part of our vocation, for we are not called to admire peace from a distance but to become instruments of peace in the places where we actually live, in our homes, in our churches, in our towns, in our WhatsApp groups, around parish tables, in moments when tempers rise, and in seasons when the country feels fragile.
And we will not always get it right, because there will be times when we react too quickly, speak from fear, or become tired and defensive, and this is precisely why peace must be understood as formation rather than a personality type, not something reserved for naturally calm people, but the slow work of grace in ordinary human beings who keep returning to Christ.
So perhaps our prayer in this anxious time is not simply, “Lord, make everything peaceful around me.”
Perhaps our deeper prayer is, “Lord, make me a person of your peace.”
Make my heart truthful and gentle, my spirit alert and grounded in trust, my words honest and life-giving, my presence steady and warm, my compassion wise and open, and make me brave enough to love in anxious times.
The world does not need more people passing on fear; it needs people who have been formed deeply enough in Christ to carry a living, Christ-shaped peace into fearful places, a peace that is neither shallow, silent, nor avoiding, but strong enough to stand in conflict, grief, community tension, and uncertainty without becoming hard.
May we become such people.
And may the peace of Christ begin again in us.
