To Rest in Peace

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

October 1, 2020: Remembering St. Teresa of Child Jesus

Job 19: 21-27; Luke 10: 1-12

RIP - is a well known sign/acronym that we see, use and sometimes fear! It is expanded as Rest in Peace popularly, though that is not exactly the expansion! The real expansion is from Latin, Requiescat in Pace, which is translated also as rest in peace and made so popular in English that we have come to equate the abbreviation with that. But why this discussion now? Simply to understand the meaning of that all-famous and all-important Christian wish: to rest in peace! Yes, it is wish and prayer, but what should it truly mean?

There is another phrase in Latin which goes - dormit in pace, which means sleeping in peace, which has more directly to do with death and the state after death. Instead, requiescat in pace does not refer only about a state after death - it would mean remaining in peace! Or in the words of the Gospel today: peace remaining with you! "And if a person of peace lives there, your peace will go and rest on that person; if not it will come back to you!" There is a sort of disposition that is needed, if we wish that peace remains with us.

There are those of us who wish for peace and calm - but we do nothing to make that happen, or we do just the opposite, in such a way that even the little peace that we have, finds its first way out from within and around us! So much of expectations we build, so much of ego we develop, the extreme levels of unnecessary ambitions we pile up, the sense of competition that we nurture, the jealousies we accumulate, the anger we bottle up, the judgements we harbour, the prejudices we possess... all these will never allow us to remain in peace, or never allow peace to remain in us! 

The Little flower (St. Teresa of Child Jesus) whom we remember today reminds us of that child like attitude, which makes us persons of peace, persons who are disposed to peace that wishes to remain with us. She would say: 'what matters is not great deeds, but deeds with great love'! The Little way that she proposes is simply a total, loving and radical surrender into the hands of God; allowing God to work on us and being ready to dispose ourselves to divine peace. 

It is not resting in peace after our death that should be our primary motive, because that will happen only if we can rest in peace or remain in peace here and now, with ourselves, with others and with God. Let us wish each other and pray for each other, that we here and now, rest in peace!