March 31, 2026

Dear friends, Holy Week Blessings of peace!

     Each year, during Holy Week, I try to reread the passion narratives in the four Gospels. In recent years, I have been focusing on Jesus’ prayer of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before he is arrested and dragged off to his death. His prayer is short and to the point: “Your will, not mine, be done!”

     That is really the focus of my new book, Universal Love: Surrendering to the God of Peace (Orbis). Once in South Africa, as I tell, Archbishop Tutu told me that free will was the key to understanding both God and nonviolence, that we are given free will and have to choose to do God’s will. Over the years as I have reflected on his teaching, I’ve discovered new levels of self will and self reliance that block me from the peace and love of God, so I’ve tried to focus on doing God’s will, not mine. The book tells the story of my sharing such insights with a young person who asked me at the start of the pandemic to be his spiritual director. As he learned to meditate, practice nonviolence, and surrender everything to God, I began to make the prayer of Gethsemane, which is also the center of the Lord’s prayer, my own prayer. I also explore the political consequences of doing the will of the God of peace: from now on, like Jesus, we stand against war, empire, injustice, poverty, greed, hatred, and violence.