The new meditation read April 15 called for a moment of silence: “In the face of death, silence is more eloquent than words. Let us pause in prayerful silence and each person pray in their hearts for peace in the world.”

Jesus’ peace “is not an armed peace, never!” Pope Francis said in his general audience. “The weapons of the Gospel are prayer, tenderness, forgiveness and freely-given love for one’s neighbor.”

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church asked Pope Francis to scrap plans to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the pope’s Way of the Cross service.

Two staff members and five others taking shelter at a Caritas office in Mariupol, Ukraine, were killed after the building was destroyed by tank fire.

On Palm Sunday, Pope Francis made an appeal to “lay down the arms in Ukraine” and asked, “What kind of a victory would it be to plant a flag on a heap of ruins?”

Faced with anxieties we have not experienced since the Cold War, perhaps it is time to return to Thomas Merton’s writings on nuclear weapons and the Christian responsibility to advocate for peace in a nuclear age.