52 lines
3.2 KiB
HTML
52 lines
3.2 KiB
HTML
<p>Currently I am on vacation back in the United States, visiting family. We
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live in Minnesota. In the city many people boast of being open, accepting,
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tolerant and loving. There are signs about love and social justice on every
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block, if not every house. One would think this should be a good sign, of a
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loving community that wants to welcome everyone; I even remember seeing one sign
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that said "Wherever you're from, we're glad you're our neighbor." But in Spanish
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we have a saying: <i>dime de lo que presumes, y te diré lo que te falta</i>
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(tell me that which you boast of and I will tell you what you lack).</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, the attitude I often see is that these very same people are
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only loving and tolerant of those that agree with them. In other cases, it often
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borders on hatred, wishing ill upon them, insulting them, degrading them, and
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refusing to even attempt to understand their concerns.</p>
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<p>All this is not to say that the people they despise are saints with no fault,
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or that they themselves aren't committing heinous crimes against charity. But to
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respond with evil out of vengeance is not a solution, as it is not love but
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hatred. We must remember that as Christians our model is Jesus Christ, and
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Christ made it absolutely clear how we are supposed to treat those who abuse us:
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we're supposed to love them, to pray for them, and to do good to them:</p>
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<blockquote>
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But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray
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for them that persecute and calumniate you: That you may be the children of
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your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and
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bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that
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love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this?
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And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the
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heathens this?<br />
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- Matthew 5:44-47
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</blockquote>
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<p>It is completely unacceptable for us to wish ill upon those who wish ill upon
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us or others, <em>for that makes us no better than them</em>. This is an
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extremely difficult teaching, without a doubt, but God demands many hard things
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of us, many of which we probably won't even like. Yet He will always provide us
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with the necessary grace to live in His commandments, which are commandments of
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love. This means that we must think of the person we despise the most, the
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person that gets on our nerves the most, or (even more difficult) the person
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that has done us most harm, and we must be able to love that person, and pray
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for them, and do good to them.</p>
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<p>I do not write any of this in order to degrade the wonderful work these
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people may be doing in making others feel welcome in their communities.
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Especially when talking about immigrants who have left their homes by force, and
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are in a strange land they don't even want to be in, knowing that you're welcome
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can make that burden just a little lighter. Rather, I simply wish to fraternally
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correct in hopes of change. Ultimately, hatred will always exist so long as we
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are pilgrims in this world. It is not until we enter into the Beatific Vision
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that we may finally rest in peace in our Lord's Kingdom, where hatred has no
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place; as God is Love (1 John 4:8).</p>
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