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Tag Archives: forgiveness of enemies

Why Do ‘They’ Hate Us?

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Love, Loving our Neighbor

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Becoming like Christ, Dying to Self, forgiveness of enemies, Image of God, Loving our Neighbor

Although the ‘They’ listed in the title could refer to anyone that hates us, can also be seen as connected to my last two posts. As we start with this consideration of why people hate one another let us first consider what hatred really is. It seems to me that hatred is the effect of giving into the selfishness of being offended by the action of another. It is the desiring of evil to happen to the one who harmed us. (Whether or not the harm done was real or only perceived does not really matter. What matters is that someone feels slighted in some way and therefore hates the one who hurt them.) On the other hand, love is desiring the good of the ‘other’, even if they have harmed us.

The desire to hate and the lack of love, therefore, can be seen to be the cause of most (all?) conflict amongst mankind. So if we want to resolve conflict it seems that we must ask how do we avoid (or rid ourselves of) hatred? To this question someone might say, “Why should I want to get rid of hatred? The person that did _______ (here fill in your own offense) is bad and deserves to be hated.”

The reason we should rid ourselves of hatred is because we are not God. Hatred, it seems to me, comes from our desire to be the ‘God’ of our own lives, e.g., I don’t have things go the way I want them to and therefore I punish with my hatred the one who harmed me. (Not that I would or should do this – it is only an example.) It was the sin of Adam and Eve that introduced this disorder into the life of mankind. But the order that we were created for is that of love; a love based on God the Creator creating us out of love and for love: both love of God and love of those made in His Image: our fellow man. And this love, the love we were created for, is only possible if we live our lives in knowledge of the fact that we, the individual, are not God. We are creatures, who if we would act in love towards others as we were created to do, would see the true evil that lies within hatred. And as a result, we would no longer want to hate anyone. At least it seems to me this is the way that a Christian should see things.

So in answer to the question of why do ‘they’ hate us: in regards to those Muslims who do hate us, perhaps it is something within Islam that causes them to see things in a completely different light than a Christian would. Of course that would not make it right for them to hate us but it at least would help us understand why they hate us. But I am not a Muslim scholar and do not know what it is that might make them see things differently than us. If anyone has the answer please feel free to say so.

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Hail Mary…

13 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Eternal Life, Loving our Neighbor, Salvation

≈ 1 Comment

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forgiveness of enemies, Loving our Neighbor, Mary

Just a few moments ago, as I was preparing to write, the bells for the Angelus started to ring. The Angelus has been a part of my life going back to the Episcopal seminary I attended. It was there that three times a day the bell would ring and everyone, no matter what they were doing, would stop and remember the Incarnation of Jesus beginning with the words, “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary; and she conceived by the Holy Ghost.” And that angel was, of course, the Archangel Gabriel. And so it seemed to me very Providential today that the Angelus would ring out just as I was preparing to write about the Archangel Gabriel.

Specifically, my purpose today is to make an important point in regards to my last post. That being said, we must ask how does the ‘religion of peace’ relate to the Archangel Gabriel? Well, I would say that he does not relate in the least to Islam, which I will explain below. But Islam, on the other hand, has something else to say in regards to Gabriel.

Before we get to the Muslim belief on Gabriel, let us recap the Christian understanding. Gabriel appeared to the Blessed Virgin Mary and announced to her the coming of the Son of God, and that she was to be His mother. Mary accepted this very special vocation from God by agreeing to God’s plan and she conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament prophesied about this event and the New Testament consistently expresses that Jesus, the Son of Mary, was and truly is the Son of God. Even Jesus Himself confirms this in the Gospels. And all of this was announced by the Archangel Gabriel.

Now to Islam: Muslims believe that it was the Archangel Gabriel that appeared Muhammad and revealed to him Islam. They believe that it was Gabriel that dictated the Koran for Muhammed to right down. But, the Koran says that even though Jesus was indeed born to the Virgin Mary, He was only a prophet and not God.

Therefore we are left with two religions claiming contradictory things about the same angelic being. Common sense dictates that it is not possible that Gabriel came to Mary announcing the birth of God's Son and also came to Muhammad saying that Jesus was not God's Son. There is only one option: one of the religions is true and the other is a lie. As a Catholic priest I am sure you know with which religion I side.

Now this isn’t to say I don’t believe an angel appeared to Muhammad. It is entirely possible that an angel did appear to him. But, we must remember that there are two camps of angels: those who chose to do God’s will and those who did not. The angels that serve God would not say anything contradictory to the Truth; in other words, they would never lie. And so Gabriel could not have appeared to both Mary and Muhammad. But, there are a group of angels which would have no qualms whatsoever about lying. In regards to the leader of these angels Jesus said, “he is a liar and the father of lies.” This would be none other than Satan.

This is the reason that I called Islam an evil religion in my last post. It is a religion that is based on a lie that says that Jesus is not the Son of God. But, and this is very important, notice that I said it is the religion that is evil – not the people within the religion, at least not all of them. Yes, there are many within Islam that have done terrible, awful, and evil things, but that doesn’t change the fact that all Muslims, Christians, Jews, and everyone else on this planet were made in the image of God and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for all of them on the Cross. He desires that all be saved. Therefore, let us remember that Muslims live within a lie and then do what we can to show them the Truth. And let us not hate them like so many of them hate us. Instead, let us pray for their eternal souls remembering that we too need prayers for our own.

 

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The ‘Religion of Peace’

11 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Forgiveness, Salvation

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forgiveness of enemies, Image of God, Loving our Neighbor, Pain and Suffering

For a few weeks now I have been planning to do a piece on Islam. And today, the anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attacks on this country, seems to be a good day to reflect on the so-called ‘religion of peace’ and what was done to the people of this country 13 years ago. (And which continues to be done today in other parts of the world.)

Let us first get one thing straight: I am not saying that there are no peaceful Muslims. I am sure some of them are. But I believe it to be a lie to call Islam a religion of peace. Now I would imagine, in our politically correct society, that there are many people who would take offense at my calling the 9/11 attacks an ‘Islamic terriost attack’. They would say that it was only the ‘extremists’ that performed the attacks. But, let us be real, it was an Islamic attack. To deny this would be to say that the people who perpetrated the attacks were not Muslim, which would be untrue. To this someone might respond, “Yes, but many members of the Mafia are Roman Catholic, and they are responsible for many horrible crimes as well.” That is true, but it is not their Catholic faith that motivates their evil deeds. In fact, the Church denounces any such evil deeds done by one of its members or any evil done by anyone else for that matter. On the other hand, the same cannot be said of the 9/11 attacks or any of the things going on in the Middle East at this time. The actions 13 years ago and the atrocities being committed right now are very much an outgrowth of the religion of Islam, which is evidenced by the fact that the terrorists are directly motivated by the teachings of Muhammad.

But most people don’t want to think critically about such things. They just want to believe what the media tells them over and over and over again – Islam is a religion of peace. It is not hard to discover how big a lie this is. Here are some examples of what I am talking about. (There is much more that can be found at the website located here.)

Quran (5:33) – “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.”

Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”

And that is not all. In total there are “at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.” (From the above mentioned website.) To this some might say, “Yes, but jihad is supposed to be understood as a spiritual struggle.” Good luck convincing the family of James Foley and countless others throughout Islam’s history of that particular bit of nonsense.

 

Now that is enough about the whole religion of peace nonsense. If you still believe in that then go and see what the teachings of Islam really say instead taking your opinion from the talking heads on TV.

My main purpose is not to show how bad Islam really is. Instead, my main purpose today is to call for forgiveness toward those Muslims who have done such evil things against others. This is a case of hate the sin but love the sinner. On days like today when we remember such senseless evil done to us we can very easily become upset and angry, even to the point of hatred for those who do such evil deeds. When this kind of evil is done against a person or group of people there are sometimes those who will say, “I can never forgive them for that.” But as Christians we cannot allow ourselves to fall into such a trap. Yes, what was done was very evil, but look at the evil that was done to Christ and what did He say from the Cross? “Father forgive them.”

We need to understand that by giving forgiveness we are not condoning the evil that is done agaist us. Instead, when we forgive others we are saying in effect, “What you did to me was wrong, but, I do not hold it against you.” And why should we do this? Well, for one, Jesus told us, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Luke 6:27b-28, RSV-CE) And in addition He said “if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Those are very strong words which show us the importance of forgiving others. We must remember that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness, but if we do not give forgiveness to others, even to our worst enemies, then God will not forgive us either.

And why is this? Why does God require us to forgive and why did Jesus forgive His tormentors from the Cross? In fact, why did Jesus, the Son of God, die for us in the first place? Because each and every one of us, whether we be Muslim, Jew, Christian, atheist, or whatever, are made in the image and likeness of God and He desires all those who He has created to be with Him in Heaven.

And all of this brings up a final point. We should be concerned with those who are trapped within the religion of Islam. In our egalitarian “any religion is good as any other” mentality we do not understand what it means to be a Muslim. The people within it, especially the women, cannot just leave and join themselves to another religion if they feel so called. Muslims who dare to convert to Christianity are quite literally risking their lives because other Muslims, even their own family members, will kill them rather than let them leave Islam. Yes, the religion of Islam is a hateful, despotic, and even evil religion that has led to much suffering for centuries throughout the world. But those who are within it are still people in need of salvation and to carry around hatred in our hearts for them is equivalent to wishing them to hell. What we must do instead is forgive, pray for, and if possible, evangelize Muslims for the sake of their souls and our own.

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My Peace I Give to You

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Forgiveness, Loving our Neighbor, Peace

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Confession, forgiveness of enemies, Heaven, Loving our Neighbor

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.

John 14:27a, RSV-CE

This is from the Gospel reading for Mass today. For me, just hearing these words brings an immediate peacefulness to my soul. But when I look at the situations in which I usually hear or read these words I must take notice of something: it is usually at Mass or at prayer that I come across these wonderful words of our Lord. But both of those are times when you are not having to do a multitude of things; instead, you only have to be still and put yourself in the presence of God. But this is not the peace of which our Lord speaks.

The peace that our Lord wants for us is not simply the absence of those distractions and happenings in our life that can take away the calm demeanor we might have when things happen to be going our way. (Like when we can leave all our cares behind for a while when at Mass or at prayer. Or even at other times: when on vacation, a day off from work, etc.) Instead, the peace He wants for us can be ours at all times – even when it feels like we are caught in the middle of a violent storm.

To understand the peace that Christ wants to give us we must first understand what the world understands peace to be. Peace for the world is simply the lack of violence. For instance, think of the Middle East: when people call for peace amongst those countries what they mean is for the people in those countries to stop killing each other. But this is not peace – it is only a lack of violence. Even if they are not killing each other the people in those countries still hate one another and in times of ‘peace’ the least thing can set them off and they will be killing each other once again.

So we find that it is hatred that is at the root of the world's lack of peace. And the virtue needed to correct this lack of peace is love; but love is only possible if there is forgiveness. But, due to the fallen nature of mankind, there can be no true forgiveness amongst the various peoples of the world without the forgiveness that comes first from God. It is true that people can forgive one another and live in relative peace for a while. But, because of our tendency to sin, if we lose or have never known the forgiveness that comes to us only from God then we will inevitably come back into conflict with the people with which we formerly had peace.

So, how do we obtain this peace that Jesus promises us? It comes to us through the forgiveness we receive from Him through His one and only perfect Sacrifice on the Cross. When we are born into this world we are born into Original Sin and therefore, we are alienated from God because sinfulness can have no place with God Who is all good. Therefore, because we were created by God and for God, we can never be at peace, whether with God, within ourselves or with others, while we are alienated from Him. God, though, has rescued us from this alienation through the perfect Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. And it is through Baptism that we participate in Christ's Sacrifice: we are buried with Him and rise again to a new life – a life of Grace.

Through this Grace, which is God's very life that He puts within us, we are put into a right relationship with God. We are therefore no longer alienated from Him. Having been created to be with Him our lives are necessarily disordered, which means there can be no true peace, until we are brought out of that alienation. Once we are made right with Him then peace within our souls is restored because we are at peace with the One who created us. But, of course, this state of Grace we have received through Baptism can be lost if we mortally sin – meaning that through some serious sin we deliberately and with full knowledge of the wrong done turn our back on God. When that happens then the peace we had is lost – until we turn back to God for forgiveness through the Sacrament of Penance.

But in connection with the forgiveness we receive from Christ we must remember His own words of warning, “if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:15, RSV-CE) The logical conclusion then seems to be this: if we want peace with God, with others and within ourselves – that being true peace and not just the absence of conflict or strife in our lives – then we must forgive others just as God has forgiven us.

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Love the Sin – Hate the Sinner?

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Forgiveness, Loving our Neighbor

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Becoming like Christ, Dying to Self, forgiveness of enemies, Happiness, Heaven, Hell, Loving our Neighbor

It is more than likely that we have all heard the phrase, “hate the sin – love the sinner.” This is the example we have received from our Lord Jesus Christ. This morning, though, it occured to me that Satan does just the opposite and “hates the sinner but loves the sin.” It is, therefore, ironic that we so often emulate Satan instead of our Lord. What do we do (unless we are living saints) when someone offends us? If we are honest we would have to admit that our immediate reaction is, to a greater or lesser extent, to hate the person that offended us. We think to ourselves, “How could he do that to me?!” Or, “He thinks he's so great: I'll show him!”

Satan hates us and wants to drag as many of us to hell with him as possible. When we think such evil thoughts in regards to those who offend us then we are effectively doing the same thing: we are sending people to hell with our thoughts. But is that what we really want to do? Do we really want to condemn people to an eternity of despair and pain for a momentary pain they may have caused us? (And any pain in this life is only momentary.) If we really want someone to go to hell then we have probably condemned ourselves to the same fate because we have become just like Satan.

But I think for most of us, if we really thought about the consequences of our evil thoughts toward others, we would see that in the big scheme of things what has been done to offend us pales in comparison to our wrath at the offense. So the next time someone hurts us we should try to remember that that person has an immortal soul created and loved by God every bit as much as He loves our own. And if we desire to be happy for eternity then let us emulate Him when we are hurt. Yes, we should hate the sin because sinfulness can have no place with God. And we should then love the sinner with the realization that the sinner is our very self.

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Loving our Neighbor as Ourselves

04 Sunday May 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Repentance, Salvation

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Becoming like Christ, forgiveness of enemies, Loving our Neighbor

Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves—to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.

Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

I am working on something else to post today, but am not sure if I will be able to finish it. Therefore, I am posting this quick quote by Lewis because it cannot be repeated often enough. At the time he wrote this he would have been referring to the Nazis as the ‘enemy’. Today a similar enemy to which this quote could apply is secular progressives. And how are these two groups are similar: both the Nazis then and the secular progressives now think (in their own minds) that they are making the world a better place through acts that are immoral, unethical and even evil. For example, the Nazis wanted to make a better world through creating a ‘pure race’, therefore they exterminated anyone that did not fit the mold. Secular progressives want to make a perfect world through a false understanding of equality – men and women should have exactly the same opportunities. But, when an unintentional pregnancy happens the woman is ‘punished’ with a baby while the man is not. He can go on and be successful (in the eyes of the world) without any hindrance but she must ‘put her carrer on hold’ and raise a baby. Therefore, for things to be ‘fair and equal’, the ‘problem’ (i.e. the baby) is exterminated.

Nevertheless, as Lewis says, we should love our neighbor, which in this case is secular progressives. We should not retain hatred within our hearts in regards to them but instead should desire and pray for their repentance and ultimate salvation. But in addition to praying for them, we are obligated to do everything in our power to overturn everything they have established that is immoral, unethical and evil.

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Remembering Grievances – a cancer in the mind

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Liturgy of the Hours, Repentance, Salvation, Thought for the Day

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Becoming like Christ, forgiveness of enemies

No time to comment on the quote below from the Office of Readings for the day. Suffice it to say that it is something we all need to think about – including myself.

Put aside hatred and hostility. See to it that you refrain from harsh words. But if you do speak them, do not be ashamed to apply the remedy from the same lips that inflicted the wounds. In this way you will show each other mercy and not keep alive the memories of past wrongs. Remembering grievances works great damage. It is accompanied by anger, fosters sin, and brings a hatred for justice. It is a rusty arrow spreading poison in the soul. It destroys virtue and is a cancer in the mind. It thwarts prayer and mangles the petitions we make to God. It drives out love and is a nail driven into the soul, an evil that never sleeps, a sin that never fades away, a kind of daily death.

Be lovers of peace, the most precious treasure that anyone can desire. You are already aware that our sins drive God to anger, so you must repent of them, that God in his mercy may spare you. What men conceal is open to God. Turn to him with a sincere heart. Live in such a way that you bring upon yourselves the blessing of God, and that the peace of God our Father may be with you always.

From a letter by St Francis of Paola

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To forgive as we have been forgiven, part 2

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Repentance, Salvation, von Hildebrand

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Becoming like Christ, forgiveness of enemies

On Tuesday I wrote in regards to the Gospel lesson for the day from Matthew 6, when our Lord taught His disciples the Pater Noster. My intention from the beginning was to include this part 2 with the original post, but the first post was getting long and I was running out of time. (Also to be noted, there was a typo in the original post that has been corrected in the last paragraph.)

What I want to discuss today in regards to forgiveness comes from von Hildebrand’s book The Heart, an Analysis of Human and Divine Affectivity. I am only about halfway through the book at this point but I would say that the main point is von Hildebrand's belief that the heart, as the center of affectivity, the will and the intellect should all work together within man. He is also trying to correct misunderstandings: people believe that the affective part of man shouldn’t be trusted because it is subjective and leads to sentimentality. He rebukes this misconception and shows how the affective sphere of man is necessary but must be used properly.

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To forgive as we have been forgiven

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in C.S. Lewis, Repentance, Salvation

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Cross, forgiveness of enemies, Lord's Prayer

In the Gospel reading for Mass today our Lord teaches us the following,

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 6:14-15, RSV-CE

This He said immediately after He taught His followers the Pater Noster in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount. I want to focus on these verses from 6:14-15 because they should not be overlooked. With these words Jesus is reiterating what He said just a few verses previous in the Pater Noster. In the twelfth verse Jesus said, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” And, of course, in our praying of the Pater Noster we change ‘debt’ to ‘trespass’. Even though we change debt to trepass for reciting the Pater Noster the words for debts/debtors in the Greek text of verse 12 are not the same as words used for trepasses in the Greek text of verses 14-15. Nevertheless, in the context of the passage it does seem that Jesus is speaking of the same thing in both verse 12 and verses 14-15: trepasses or sins.

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Fr. Moore

Fr. Moore

Parochial Vicar Our Lady of the Atonement San Antonio, Texas FrMoore@truthwithboldness.com

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