”Never Again War” (Ukraine), 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time-C

"Never again war! Never again war!" Pope Paul VI's cry from the heart before the General Assembly of the United Nations on October 4, 1965 has been largely dismissed in the decades since. War upon war upon war has fractured humanity. Paul VI identifies a vile kind of pride as the root of our tendency to choose war over peace and suggests humility among nations as the response, a humility modeled by Jesus himself. 

This newest war challenges not only nations, but each of us and all of us to examine our own lives for that vile pride, the "rotten fruit" sprung from a "rotten tree" and to seek to nurture instead the fruit of justice and peace so that we might truly live the prophetic cry of Paul VI: "Never again war! Never again war!"