What Good Does It Do to Pray for Peace?

What good does it do to pray for peace, as the Pope has requested?  At first glance, it might appear to do no good at all.  After all, at least one party to a war must (to some degree) will the war, and one of the clearest but strangest facts of theology is that God will not remove our free will.  He allows us to choose evil; He allows us to hate others.

But think again about times recently when you may have been grouchy or unreasonable.  We do ultimately choose how to behave, but there are many influences on our moods.  Maybe you did not sleep well the night before; maybe you had an upset stomach; maybe you did not know when the mechanic would finish with your car or how much it would end up costing.  Such exterior circumstances have nothing to do with free will, but they can make it easier or harder to exercise your will in a good way.

I assume that the good effect of prayer is likely to be (in many cases) some change in these external circumstances.  A president who is feeling too tired to deal with complaints that he has not taken action may get better rest; a combatant who feels invincible might experience a sudden reminder of his own mortality; a skillful compromise which no one had foreseen might be suggested.  As the saying goes, peace would be given a chance, though that chance may always still be refused.

The other benefit, of course, is the benefit of all prayer:  it reminds the one one praying that God is ultimately in charge of this as of all things.

Idolatry

I am the king's good servant, but God's first.   

-- Saint Thomas More

It is easy to find Protestant churches, like the one that owns these flags, making the opposite declaration:  "We are God's good servants, but the State's first."  No doubt this is mostly a matter of thoughtlessness, but objectively speaking, this is idolatry. 

Ironically, the same churches that fly the "Christian flag" (which only dates back to 1907, and which most Christians worldwide would not recognize -- not even in the sense of knowing what it is supposed to represent) underneath the US flag accuse the Catholic Church of idolatry for having statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other Saints.  Those, you see, are graven images and are prohibited in the Ten Commandments.  The seated statue in the Lincoln Memorial?  The faces of presidents on coins?  Don't ask -- you're not supposed to notice those.  A Catholic with a statue of St. Francis in his garden is committing idolatry, these churches would say; one of their own number with a statue of a gnome in his garden is not.  A Catholic with a statue of the Blessed Virgin on his mantel is committing idolatry; a Protestant with a small copy of the Statue of Liberty on his mantel is not.

Sorry, but the essence of idolatry is to put something else on par with or above God Himself, and that is precisely the symbolism of flying the US flag above the "Christian flag".  It makes sense to fly the US flag over a corporate flag (which some companies have) because federal law supersedes company policies.  It makes sense to fly the US flag over state and city flags because it signifies that (at least since 1865) the authority of the federal government is greater than that of any more local form of government.  Flags of foreign governments may be flown either a little beneath the US flag (on a different pole) or at the same level, to show that the USA is neither a part of anyone's empire nor anyone's client state. But to fly the US flag over the "Christian flag"?

At this point, of course, the Protestant American will say (I have had this conversation before), "But the Flag Code says that nothing may be flown above the US flag!  The law says that the US flag must be given the greatest honor!"  There are several problems with this objection.

1. The Flag Code does not supersede the US Constitution.  Since the Supreme Court has ruled that even burning a US flag is protected by the First Amendment, it is certainly permissible to fly the "Christian flag" above the US flag as a statement of religious conviction.
2. There is no requirement to fly the US flag at all in your churchyard.  If you were to fly the "Christian flag" alone on a pole, the controversy would not arise.
3. Similarly, no religious body I know of holds that it is imperative to fly the "Christian flag".  Many chose to do so, but they see it as an optional symbol, not a necessary one.  If only the US flag were flown, the controversy would again disappear.
4. Perhaps the best solution would be to fly only the US flag, but to top the flagpole with a cross.  This avoids any idea suggestion that Church and State are competing for the same type of authority.
5. We've been down this road before.  At one point it was the law that everyone must worship the "divine Caesar".  Failure to do so could result in death, but real Christians refused nonetheless.  If American Protestants are willing to render greater honors to the US government than to God even when the Supreme Court says they don't have to, how can they expect to stand when a persecution begins?

Thy Resurrection, O Christ Our Savior

Thy Resurrection, O Christ our SaviorThe angels in Heaven sing;Enable us on earth To glorify Thee in purity of heart!

The second miracle -- enabling us to glorify Him with purity of heart -- is greater than the first.

As Menochius says regarding Matthew 9:5 (quoted in the Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 ed.),

It is more difficult to remit sins than restore the health of the body. St. Augustine remarks, (tract. lxxii in Joannem) it is more difficult to justify a man than to create the heavens and the earth; but Christ speaks thus, because the Pharisees might otherwise have said, that as he could not confer visible health upon the body, he had recourse to the invisible remission of sins, and that it was easy to grant in words, what no one could discern whether it was really granted or not. In this sense, therefore, the word, "Be thou healed," is more difficult than simply to say, "Thy sins are forgiven thee;" which any one could say, though he might not effect what his word implied.

Спаси Господи, люди Твоя

Спаси Господи, люди Твоя, 
и благослови достояние Твое, 
победы православным христианом
на сопротивныя даруя, 
и Твоё сохраняя Крестом Твоим жительство.

Note:   The translation is as follows.
O Lord, save Thy people,
And protect thy inheritance.
Grant great victories to the Orthodox Christians
Over their adversaries,
And by virtue of Thy Cross, 
Preserve Thy habitation.
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