True greatness is to constantly acknowledge God, to thank Him and to seek to put all of our gifts at His disposal. True greatness is to ask Him how He wants us to use our gifts, so as to help transform this world He created and loves, until the day He returns and recreates it. True greatness is humility, never boasting as if something is our own. True greatness is to put first things first, always, starting with God.

Jesus’ prayer for the unity of all those who believe in Him is one that I fear many of us — myself very much included — do not usually take anywhere seriously enough. In His farewell discourses in John, the Lord’s motive for this unity is twofold: that the world will believe the Father sent Him and that the world may know that God loves them even as He does His Son (cf. John 17:11-23).

...the peace God and God alone can give and does give is able to calm our hearts and minds even when things all around us are on fire, whether literally or figuratively. The peace of Jesus can reign in us regardless of whether or not the circumstances of life or up or down.

As we turn the calendar and continue to read and watch stories of ongoing violence, wars, and division, let us call upon the intercession of Peter and Paul, and invoke the power of the Holy Spirit to fall upon us, that we may somehow further and advance the peace that only God can give and bring to the creature made in His image and likeness whom He so loves.