As children, there is something powerful about the stories told to us by our fathers.

My time with my dad was always filled with family stories, made up stories, Bible stories or ancient myths and they all left an impression on my young heart.

My dad was especially fond of sharing his love of Native Americans, who had a deep spirituality and special relationship with creation born of respect and gratitude.

One of my favorite stories was the Iroquois tale of the Great Peacemaker, the Great Law of Peace and the Peace Tree.

Years later, I would learn how instrumental the Iroquois and the Great Law of Peace would be in American history, but, as a child, I was enamored of the image of a great peace hero and the roots of the peace tree reaching out to join all people in unity.

It is no surprise that, as a teen graduating from high school, I chose a Beatitude as the verse that would appear under my yearbook photo: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”

When my youthful, naïve, romantic vision of peacemaking came face-to- face with the actual violence and cruelty that existed in the world, even among Native American tribes, I discovered that peacemaking wasn’t as easy I believed it to be.

What I have come to understand over many years is that peace needs to be cultivated. It is a task that needs to be undertaken interiorly, in our hearts, and exteriorly, through our actions.

For us, as children of God, peace must be something more than simply the absence of war. Peace must flow from our relationships – with God, with creation, and with others.

Years ago, during an annual conference for Catholic school teachers and catechists, I gave a workshop entitled, “Is Peace the Piece that is Missing?”

During the presentation I offered a few questions for reflection: How many of you have spoken about peace to your students in the last week; given a homework assignment relating to peace; offered prayers for peace with your class; undertaken some action for peace with your class; have a peace bulletin board; have the word peace visible somewhere in your classroom?

The most provocative question, apparently, was, “How many of you know, without a doubt, where you stand on the issue of peace and the need for war?”

The answers were not encouraging. One teacher walked out.

She had lost a brother in the Twin Towers attack and was very angry with me and the ideas I was sharing regarding the way of peace.

Two years later, a woman stopped me at the same annual conference and asked if I had given a peace workshop a few years prior. When I acknowledged that I had, she said, “I am the woman who walked out. It took me a long time, more than a year, but I finally got it.” Then she hugged me.

Servant of God Dorothy Day once said, “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.”

For many, that personal challenge is very difficult because, sometimes, the most troubling reality is the one we come face-to-face with in our own hearts.

So, how are we to take up the great task of peacemaking?

I am encouraged always by prayer and, again, by the words of Dorothy Day: “We must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.”

Mary Morrell is the author of “Let Go and Live,” and “Things My Father Taught Me About Love,” both available as ebooks on Amazon.