Contemplative Life as Peacemaking Practice

Here's a quote I came across during our time tonight at RMSI.

"In this rule of life, violence is simply discounted. Violence doesn't work. Not political violence, not social violence, not physical violence, not even the violence that we do to ourselves in the name of religion. Wars haven't worked. Classism hasn't worked. Fanaticism hasn't worked. Benedictinism, on the other hand, simply does not have as its goal either to beat the body down or to vanquish the world. Benedictinism simply sets out to gentle a universe riddled with violence by being a peaceful voice for peace in a world that thinks that everything -- international relations, child rearing, economic development, even everything in the spiritual life -- is accomplished by force."

Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages (New York: Crossroads, 1992, 2009), 24-25, emphasis added.