“If you want peace, work for justice.” This was the simple but profound declaration of Pope Paul VI in his message for the Celebration of the Day of Peace way back in 1972. It is a message being echoed today on signs around the globe: “No justice. No peace.”
We are blessed to have a rich Catholic social teaching that gives us a clear understanding of what justice is. In our tradition, justice begins with the recognition that there is one God who created every person in God’s own image and likeness. Every person, therefore, has an inherent dignity that no individual, no government, no social or economic system may compromise or deny. Justice, therefore, requires that we honor, respect, and protect the dignity of all human beings. To respect, honor and protect the dignity of all human beings requires that we work to eliminate all those things that threaten the dignity of human persons.
This means that we work to ensure that all persons have access to what is necessary to live in dignity – affordable housing that is in good condition, access to health care, sufficient food, employment, just salaries, secure communities, opportunity for rest, and opportunity for a secure retirement. As we have seen from generation to generation, and as we are seeing today, when the prerequisites of justice are absent in a society, there can be no peace as persons struggle to secure what should be theirs by right.
As we are all brothers and sisters in the one God who created each of us equal in dignity, we cannot live tranquil and peaceful lives if we know that there is even one brother or sister whose dignity is at risk or whose dignity has been violated. We pray, therefore, that all the people of our nation and, of course, our civic leaders will work for that authentic justice which will yield true and lasting peace.
Psalm 37
R:/ The Lord will make the justice of this cause like the noonday sun.
The wicked one plots against the just
and gnashes teeth against them;
but the LORD laughs at the wicked,
sees that the day is at hand. R:/
The wicked draw the sword, bend their bows,
to slaughter the poor and needy,
to slay those whose ways are upright.
Their sword shall pierce their own hearts,
and their bows shall be broken to pieces. R:/
But from the LORD comes the salvation of the just,
their stronghold in time of distress.
The LORD helps them and rescues them,
rescues and saves them from the wicked:
because they take refuge in him. R:/
