The fact is that there are a number of non-negotiable teachings of our Church which we once could have confidently and respectfully proposed for consideration, but which many are now afraid to speak out loud.
by Susan Selner-Wright in Denver Catholic
I don’t know about you, but I find myself getting agitated pretty easily these days, often in ways that are not fitting for a believing Christian. I have been thinking a lot about the perils of living in a society which is becoming more and more overtly hostile to many of the norms that were simply taken for granted by the vast majority of our fellow citizens a mere 20 years ago. I’ll come back to that in a minute.
First, in order to avoid inciting unchristian agitation in you, I want to share a blessing I received from my husband a few days ago, just as I was launching into a bitter rant about how hostile so many have become to basic Catholic ideas. As part of his Lenten discipline, he has been reading through all four Gospels, and that morning he interrupted and extinguished my rant by reading aloud the words of Jesus that he had just read:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5: 43-48).
That caught me up short. The words “your heavenly Father … causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust,” especially reverberated in my mind. Maybe it’s just that I am anxious to get out in my dry Colorado garden, but for the rest of the day I kept coming back to those words and to the fact that the Father is the one in charge and that while it’s okay and maybe even necessary for me to do my little bit and do it energetically, it’s not okay for me to hate or fear or malign those who respond to my Catholic witness by calling me a “hater.” The Father causes the rain to fall on all of us, and I must do my part in his vineyard without undermining his work in me by succumbing to bitterness or reveling in outrage, temptations that my personality is all too prone to…
Read the rest at Denver Catholic
