Wine Of Peace

Jesus wine of Peace,
wine of love,
may we drink of you,
may we taste your presence,
your promise,
our future.
Drink well and live.
--David Haas,
"Jesus Wine of Peace",
communion hymn

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The whole life of Christ recapitulates itself ever anew in man.
To live as a Christian means to participate in the re-enactment of Christ’s life.
This happens every time a believer takes a step closer to the Lord, whenever he conquers himself in the course of following Christ.
When he carries out within himself the Lord’s commandment, something dies with him: the old man.
And something rises up: the new man, “made after the fashion of Christ.”
Christ rises within him.

And so on, ever the same.
Until such time as there slowly grows up within him “the glory of a child of God,” “made after the image and likeness of Christ,” at first invisible, concealed, covered over with ashes and debris, frustrated, imperiled; but then gradually growing stronger until finally it is revealed, after this death, and the old man drops away forever.

That is Christ’s love: that he lives in us in this way, and we in him, and what is his and what is ours becomes one.
That is what Christ’s love is: the love of the Redeemer who dies for us; the love which bestows itself , which gives its all, body and soul, for his life becomes our life, and ours his.

That is what Christ’s love is.
And it only in the light that shines hence that all else that had to do with love in his life takes on clarity in the plan or design of Christ’s love: how he called to himself the weary and oppressed that he might comfort them; how he took unto himself all the sufferings of mankind, bringing relief; how he showed tenderness for all living things, plants and animals: the first kind of love we spoke of shows in all these instances.
That is the love that is revealed in them.

-- Monsignor Romano Guardini

Monsignor Guardini († 1968) was born in Italy and was a renowned theologian and writer.

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