By Sr. Annie Killian
Pax Christi USA National Council
The following reflection was offered today by Sr. Annie Killian at the Ash Wednesday service at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana.
“Gather the people… Call an assembly!” Together we’ll weep for our neighbors living in fear and mourn the destruction of our land. In our own day, we hear voices around the world echoing the Prophet Joel’s cry to come together and lament. Increasingly, people are gathering to march, sit in, and stand vigil, calling for an end to war and genocide, detention and deportation, fascism and corporate greed. People are mobilizing on a mass scale to demand justice and show solidarity. They’re asking the world to turn away from violence.
As people of faith, we see the connection between nonviolent protests today and the long biblical tradition of communal fasting and repentance. On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the church gathers to “proclaim a fast.” For the prophets, fasting was less about individual self-denial and more about restoring right relationship among the community. Act with kindness and compassion. Don’t oppress the immigrant or day laborer. Stop plotting evil against one another in your hearts (Zechariah 7:9-10). “Be reconciled.”
The prophets’ emphasis on community and public witness might seem to conflict with today’s Gospel in which Jesus urges the disciples to give alms and pray in secret, not in the streets. He’s concerned about their motive. He criticizes the hypocrites who believe in their own superiority–they think their prayers and almsgiving make them better than other people. By drawing attention to themselves, they make others feel “less than.” Jesus wants the disciples to remain humbly aware of the equality of all believers before God. When we’re trying to outdo one another, it keeps us from working together for the common good.
False belief in the superiority of one group over others leads to violence. Peace begins when we recognize that all are created with equal dignity and the right to life. Pope Leo XIV has made the peace of Christ a central theme of his pontificate. For the 2026 World Day of Peace, he wrote, this “peace that is unarmed and disarming peace… comes from God who loves us all unconditionally… It finds its way into every human heart… it wants to dwell within us… it resists and overcomes violence.”
This Lent, we’re invited to discover peace already dwelling within us and create more room in our hearts for peace to grow. Violence is rooted in the desire to dominate, to wield power over others. Peace liberates us to seek the common good, to build power with others as equals. These 40 days, we turn with all our hearts to God’s gift of peace.
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