The Peace Crane
(Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Rev.21:10-14, 22-23; Jn.14:23-29)
The world has many symbols for peace. They include the olive branch and white dove, the white poppy, the broken rifle, the classic V sign – and the origami Peace Crane.
The story of the peace crane begins with a little girl, Sadako Sasaki, who was born in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1943. [i]
She was only two years old in 1945 when an atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. It destroyed their home and killed her grandmother and most of her neighbours. But Sadako seemed unhurt and she grew into a happy girl.
Ten years later, when she was 12, she collapsed at school. Sadako was taken to hospital and diagnosed with leukemia.
A friend visited her there, bringing some colourful origami paper. She told Sadako the legendary story of the Japanese crane which lives for a long time. If you fold 1,000 origami paper cranes, she said, your wish will come true.
Sadako really wanted to go home, so she began folding 1,000 paper cranes. As she made each one, she prayed she would get better and said, ‘I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.’ Her younger brother hung these birds from the ceiling of her room.
In her book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, the author Eleanor Coerr says that Sadako only made 644 cranes before she died, and her family and friends made the rest for her.
But in real life, Sadako actually folded over 1400 paper cranes. Although she didn’t get better, she kept making them, not for herself, but for her family. She died saying, ‘I want to be cured, I want to go home, I want to be with my family.’ [ii]
After her death in 1955, Sadako’s classmates raised funds to build a memorial for her and all other children hurt in war. In 1958, the Children’s Peace Monument was opened in Hiroshima’s Peace Park, with a statue of Sadako holding a golden peace crane. It has a plaque which reads: ‘This is our cry. This is our prayer: peace on Earth.’ [iii]
Every year on August 6, the anniversary of the atomic bomb, paper cranes from all over are placed at her memorial – over 10 million each year.
Sadako Sasaki’s colourful paper cranes have become a powerful symbol for peace, which we all need so badly in our world today. But what is peace?
Most people think it’s the absence of noise, trouble and hard work. They think it’s feeling calm and relaxed, and free from stress and danger. But that’s not true peace. That’s worldly peace.
Worldly peace is typically fragile, temporary and conditional, because it depends on what’s happening around you, and that’s hard to control.
True peace, however, comes from God.
In John’s Gospel today, Jesus is talking with his disciples just after the Last Supper. He knows he will die soon; he knows his disciples are frightened. So, he says to them, ‘Don’t be troubled or afraid… my peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. A peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.’
The kind of peace Jesus is talking about is very different to what we normally expect. Firstly, it doesn’t come from any human effort, for it only comes from God. Secondly, it’s internal, rather than external, so it doesn’t depend on what’s happening around us.
Jesus’ peace is a free, spiritual gift. It’s like the calm at the bottom of the ocean. Storms may be raging above, but there’s a wonderful calm deep below the surface.
It means being at peace with God, with ourselves and with our neighbour.
So how can we get some of this peace?
The only way is by having a close, loving relationship with God, and that means getting to know him and learning to love him.
Peter Kreeft says the goal of love is always intimacy, and God becomes more and more intimate with us as he reveals himself in three stages: first, the Father reveals himself in the Old Testament; then, the Son, in the New Testament; and then, the Holy Spirit, in the Church.
First God is above us, and then he is with us, and then he is in us.
First he is outside us, then he is beside us, and finally he is in us. [iv]
Symbols like Sadako’s peace crane are wonderful for reminding us of what is possible in this world.
But it’s only when you genuinely invite God into your heart and life that his peace will come flooding into your soul.
[i] To make your own Origami Peace Crane, go to: https://www.origami-fun.com/origami-crane.html
[ii] https://sadakosasaki.com/
[iii] https://theelders.org/news/masahiro-sasaki-surviving-atomic-bombing-hiroshima-his-sister-sadako-and-his-mission-advance
[iv] Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul, Cycle C, Word on Fire, Park Ridge, IL. 2021:314.