Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [161]
Yet, “blessed are the peacemakers” implies two demands upon us: first, that we shall not decide to engage in a struggle unless, having examined the case in conspectu Dei and in a state of full inward peace, we are convinced that it is our duty to uphold our right.
Secondly, that even in the course of a conflict which we had to take upon ourselves, we shall abide in a state of inward peace; that our attitude shall always remain a detached one, undefiled by bitterness and rancor, connoting no enmity but, on the contrary, charitable kindness towards our adversary; that we shall experience the conflict as a great evil, as a heavy cross we have to bear in pain.
In other words, so far as our state of mind is concerned, we must wage the conflict as though we waged it not. During all its phases, without ever allowing ourselves to be submerged by the blind automatism of strife, we must keep alive in us the longing for peace and, as far as our duty to right permits it, the immediate readiness for peace.
The spirit of peace may sometimes call us to fight for the kingdom of God
So much for the case where we must protect our rights against an aggressor. Let us turn now to the other type of situation: when we have to take our stand in defense of an objective value as such—in the supreme case, the kingdom of God itself. Here, evidently, to evade the struggle is much more difficult. For, mindful of the words of Our Lord, “I came not to send peace, but the sword” (Matt. 10:34), we should be warriors of Christ. The holy Church on earth is called ecclesia militaris (“the Church militant”). We cannot at the same time hunger and thirst after justice—an inherent basic attitude of the true Christian—and be at universal peace with the doers of evil and the unjust. The meek St. John the Evangelist goes so far as to advise the faithful against greeting heretics (2 John 10-11).
How are we to reconcile our character as a miles Christi (a “warrior of Christ”), who in St. Paul’s words shall proclaim the divine truth opportune, importune, and intrepidly oppose or even combat evil, with our love for peace and our eagerness to avoid all strife?
In order to solve this difficulty, we must first of all understand that an outward truce with evil—that is to say, a passive toleration of all objective wrongs, an attitude of silence and of letting things pass which in some circumstances has the appearance of consent and sometimes actually results in consent—can never derive from a love for true peace. For the real value of peace resides in its being an outgrowth of love and an expression of genuine harmony.
The unison we pretend to establish with evil—the attitude of coolly allowing a power of wrong to unfold—neither rests on actual love nor reflects true harmony. Rather it is a product of weakness and involves a defilement with evil, a participation in the wrongdoer’s guilt. Through our feeble submission to evil we merely increase the disharmony that lies in evil as such and aggravate the discord that is implied in all evil, in all wrong that offends God: a discord deeper than the one implied in the sheer fact of conflict, however fierce.
It is, on the contrary, our struggle against evil that must be recognized as a necessary consequence of a true love of peace, inasmuch as it also means a struggle against discord and an endeavor to limit its empire.
It is not in our power to prevent evil from raising its head at this or that point, but we must strive to restrict its reign within the narrowest limits possible or else we connive at its expansion and thus actually contribute to the evil of discord. God alone, not a peaceable behavior as such, is the absolute good. Our fight for the cause of God is necessarily also a fight for true peace, seeing that the latter coincides with the victory of the kingdom of God. Therefore, the spirit of peace which must animate a true Christian will never restrain us from fighting for the kingdom of God. It will determine a basic