Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, “Peace I give to you; my own peace I leave with you:” Regard not our sins, but the faith of your Church, and give to us the peace and unity of that heavenly City, where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, now and forever. Amen.

Peace I leave with you, Jesus said. He didn’t say leisure, money, power, or the security and insularity they might buy us. Don’t look at our blindness or our inability/unwillingness to see past our own desires: see us always as part of that spiritual congregation whose vision is clear, we ask. Because the peace and unity of heaven will never settle in our bones and our communities through our own efforts. Such things come from an awareness and acceptance of our own participation in a communion that stretches back to the beginning of this creation and will embrace all life that is to come.

Heaven on earth isn’t a mini-paradise of our own making. Heaven on earth is already here, in the peace that Jesus left with us. If we want to find ourselves in it, we have to let go of our smaller, self-centered versions that will always fall short.

What a gutsy, wise thing to request in the middle of my day.