There is a tragic and bitter irony in the fact that a new war breaks out in the heart of Europe (something that to many of us seemed an impossibility) just a few days after in all our churches we heard—last Sunday—the radical proposal of Jesus to end violence.
The Gospel reading for the seventh Sunday in ordinary time, which we celebrated just four days ago, was the passage from the sixth chapter of Luke in which, precisely, Jesus invites us to break the cycle of violence (Lk 6:27-38). By asking us to love the enemy and turn the other cheek, Jesus is not asking us to be weak, timid, or humiliated. This is not the purpose of these words. What Jesus proposes, however arduous it may be to put into practice, is the only possible path to a solid and lasting peace. It is the path of non-violence that disarms, that deactivates the logic of war. It is not surrender or weakness: in fact, you have to be very brave to turn the other cheek. Only those who have understood that war is the worst of evils, and that it must be stopped at all costs, will be able to do so.
This appalling «failure of language» that is war (as Mark Twain defined it) is striking Ukraine today. The image of tanks and planes crossing a European border and invading a neighboring and sovereign nation is overwhelming. The temptation would be to believe that humanity is not advancing. That we always go back. That when we had understood that peace is sacred and that nothing justifies violence, we forget it again.
And, suddenly, a different story: the same day that the Russian army invades the neighboring nation, demonstrations against the war take place in more than fifty Russian cities. More than 1,500 people are arrested for participating in these marches.
They are brave. They raise their voices against the primitive and horrifying use of force ordered by their government.
Perhaps, after all, the words of Jesus did not fall on deaf ears. In the long run, only they, only the unwavering decision to stop violence by loving the enemy and turning the other cheek, will guarantee peace.
