The Christian must endeavor to become a sower of peace. Peace must be one of the things we seek most assiduously. Conscious of thinking, speaking and acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the person of service moves towards a peace that is durable, because it is authenticated each day.

Peace is a gift of God, a mature fruit produced by love. The evangelist Matthew places peace at the summit of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.” (Mt 5:9) By nature and through grace, Christians are children of God, but as we build peace we become more aware of our belonging to God, or our depending on him as our Father, as well as on his ability to transform each of us. The sower of peace realizes that he is in a state of evolution and transformation. Peace is truly the summit of the spiritual journey; it is the pinnacle of a pyramid whose foundation is the presence of God.

Sowers of peace lean on the rock of their being which God has chosen as a temple of his Spirit. Peace is the life of God flowing into us which is experienced as a benediction; this benediction engenders in us the faculty of being aware of God in all circumstances, and in the presence of any person or event. It is the quality of the presence of God and of an extant peace which gives a being of service the consciousness of a daily mission to be carried out. Peace is the most tangible manifestation of the active presence of God, or submission to a Supreme Being, of the heart’s being possessed by the One whom we consider a marvelous, attentive and gracious Father.

Excerpt on the book “In the Footsteps of Jesus”, pages 113-114, Father Louis-Marie Parent, O.M.I.