April 21, 2026

Dear Friends,

We began a one-year observance of our twenty-fifth anniversary on September 8, 2025. It will conclude on September 8, 2026. 

As part of our observance, we began, on September 21, 2025, a year of reflections on the heart of the Interfaith Peace Project – the Interpath Principles. The reflections are being sent to you on the eighth and twenty-first of each month. If you would like to view the previous reflections, you can find them on our blog at: interfaithpeaceproject.org.

If you have anything that you would like to share, please contact:

Thomas P. Bonacci, C.P.
[email protected]
925-787-9279

THE FOURTH INTERPATH PRINCIPLE
PEACE FILLED WORLD

We strive to commit and dedicate ourselves to reducing suffering in the World
through the practice of hope, justice, peace, and empathy.

COMMENT

We strive to practice expansive love and understanding in every dimension of our lives. We seek to find what is good, true, just, and beautiful even in situations of great hurt and difficulty. While never justifying evil or suffering, we seek to move beyond despair and hopelessness. We seek vision in heartbreak, committing ourselves to comfort all who suffer as best we can. We support local, national, and global organizations, never forgetting the individual people we are blessed to serve. We claim the peace in our hearts for the sake of the World.

REFLECTION

One of the most important peacemakers in our time, John Dear, powerfully teaches, “The life of peace is both an inner journey toward a disarmed heart and a public journey toward a disarmed world. This difficult but beautiful journey gives infinite meaning and fulfillment to life itself because our lives become a gift for the whole human race. With peace as the beginning, middle, and end of life, life makes sense.”

The “disarming of the heart” is key to the disarming of the words we speak to one another. Consider the violent rhetoric of powerful politicians who claim religious authority for the sake of justifying violence and intolerance. They sometimes have religious allies who ought to know better. The world can be set on fire with words that flow from an angry and self-righteous heart. 

The inner journey invites change of heart. This is not simply a matter of how we feel but how and what we think. Peacemaking is hard work. It requires we meet people we might fear because of biases and prejudice. Global peace begins over the back fence, the check-out counter, the local place of worship. If we would be peacemakers then we would go out of our way to meet others, especially those we might hesitate to engage. We must not simply read and hear about other peoples and cultures. We must meet them with hearts wide open. Again, our friend John Dear, teaches, “It’s strange how knowledge changes perception.” 

Expansive love for others is the consequence of this radical openness. Expansive love occurs in a most natural way as we encounter more and more people and learn from them who they are and what they think. 

Violence and war blind us to the individuality of other people we might never meet. We talk about killing the enemy but never see the face of a mother when her child is killed by senseless bombings and weapons that take food out of the mouths of children.

Peacemaking is hard work. We might put ourselves at risk. Not a few have died in the pursuit of peace. The great religious Traditions often have founders who suffered terribly or were killed unjustly in the pursuit of peace. If we were to honor them, we might rededicate ourselves to being peaceful people for the sake of the world, no matter the consequences. 

Blessings to you, Beloved Community, for striving to be peacemakers. The world is a better place because of you and your dedication. Thank you for disarming your heart so your heart might do what it does best – love.