Many, many years ago when I was about 16 my Spiritual Director used to have a little seminar each week on a different subject and we were invited to discuss it. Of course I have long since forgotten all that was said except for one on the subject of our emotions towards other people and how they feel about us. Father Bernard said we must love everyone but we cannot like everyone. I thought this seemed od and asked the question, 'If Jesus and Mary appeared to us and said that they loved us but did not like us very much , how would we feel about it?' At which everyone laughed and Father Bernard looked embarrassed. For, of course if we told someone we loved them but didn't like them very much they would probably reach for something heavy and hit us over the head with it! :wink: In scripture Jesus let fire with both barrels at the Sadducees and Pharisees , who in their turn detested Jesus and worked as hard as ever they could to could to discredit Jesus and have him killed: "They put testing questions to Him, e.g. as to the way of inheriting eternal life (Luke 10:25ff), as to the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:34ff, Mark 12:28ff), and as to the law of divorce (Matthew 19:3, Mark 10:2). "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee...." (Matthew 23:13, 23:23-26) Jesus was so clearly a person of great love, mercy and forgiveness, His heart was on fire with love. I think when He was hitting out at the Pharisees it was not dislike of them, for He loved them , it was dislike for their evil goings on...and I think if they had put their hands up to their wrong doing, He would have taken them to His heart in an instant. Isaiah 1:16-18 Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Take your wrong-doing out of my sight. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us talk this over, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. contd....
So there is a great purity in Our Lords response to those who hated Him.He hates the sin but loves the sinner. 'When Padre Pio used to minister in the confession box he now and again appeared angry at the penitent or slammed the grill in their faces. This seems harsh and yet it was because he was trying to get through to those who were far from God as Jesus was trying to do with attitude towards the Pharisees. The man who, one day, came to Padre Pio, was of that type of hard, cold criminals who will stop at nothing. This individual wanted to get rid of his wife but in such a way that his crime would be cloaked with a motive of piety. Under the pretext of going to see Padre Pio, he brought his wife with him to San Giovanni Rotondo where he planned to kill her in a most diabolical way. On arriving at the monastery, he went through the Capuchins' church to the sacristy. Padre Pio was there, talking to some people. When he saw the man, he left abruptly, went to the man, and began to push him violently towards the door, shouting at the top of his voice: “Get out! Get out! Don't you know it is forbidden to stain your hands with blood? Get out!” The unfortunate man was dumbfounded and, livid with rage, bolted out of the church, to the astonishment of everyone there. However, the strong words and behaviour of Padre Pio made such an impression on him that he could not get a wink of sleep all night. He began to understand the horror of what he was planning and, touched by grace, was a different man in the morning. He went to the monastery, and this time Padre Pio received him with great tenderness, heard his confession, and gave him absolution. To crown everything, Padre Pio asked him before he left: “You have always wanted children, haven't you? Do not offend God anymore, and you will have a son.” A year later, the man returned to Padre Pio to celebrate his son's baptism and the confirmation of his conversion.' So that when Padre Pio acted in this way it was with great purity of intention. They were out to nail the sin, rather than the sinner. The great test for us if our actions towards others is whether or not we cause or intend harm towards them. This is the bottom line. We might fool ourselves often we are acting or speaking for their own good, to give them a piece of our mind, but its hard to act with the purity of, say, a Padre Pio. Jesus, Himself gives us a great way of dealing with those who dislike us or hate us: Matthew 5:44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Not on the face of it easy or even humanly possible but , really its the only road to go; for any other road leads to letting fire with both barrels right back. Sometimes this can lead to days, weeks or even years with wrestling with God until we find peace. But the person who is against us in this way, an obstacle in our path becomes a ladder to holiness and to heaven.
So. Picture people like this. A fleet of little boats on a vast sea,the sea pf life. Tossed and turned by the tides and winds and the vagaries of the steering of their various captains. Some boats, though have very deep anchors. These are sunk deep into the Sacred Heart pf God in the ocean floor, sunk their by faith and prayer and are rock solid and stay in place no matter how the storms blow. Other , without faith or of little faith blow and turn with every eddy. So it is with souls in their liking and disliking of those around them. The irony being that the captains of the little boats without the anchor of faith consider themselves freerer than those with anchors because they blow were they will. Never do they stop and think that they are not free at all , but blown here and there with every wind that comes. Not only this but there hearts are so empty their little boats actually become captained by demons who decide who the soul shall like or dislike Revelation 18:1-3Jesus looking Up "After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! "For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury"
While in the first place we should always look for natural explanations to our own and other peoples dislikes {and search our consciences whilst doing so} the lives of the saints show real storms of dislike and pure hate rising against them often from almost out of no where. Nor to these storms consist of simply malicious or ill intentioned people, good folks, caught up in the great hub bub against the saints join in too. I think one of the best examples of this lies in the life of Saint Margaret Mary Alocoque. the French nun who was visited by the Sacred Heart. A number of her fellow sisters dragged her from cell and gave her a good kicking for several nights running , screaming and howling the worst kind of insults at her , whilst the other sisters laid cowering in their cells terrified and not much help or use, to their shame. The angry sisters has a number of reasons, bad reasons, but still for having their noses very much out of joint with poor Saint Margaret Mary. Firstly she came from an ordinary working class background whereas the other sisters in the convent came from a more noble background. Convents were often kind of retirement or rest homes were ladies and their families who did not know what else to do with themselves went or were sent. Their they had a certain freedom and a place to be, security, safety and comfort. St Margaret's getting in would have brought down the tone of the place in these haughty women's eyes. Generally working class women ended up as lay sisters and carried out the hard physical labour round the place such as the cleaning and this is what the other sisters would have been happier to have seen Margaret doing. Many of the ladies had not religious vocations as such and had plenty of time on their hands to gossip about others and stir up real trouble. It would not have all helped matters that Saint Margaret was a saint and a woman of very deep prayer. For nothing upsets people in a Religious Order who do not live out their vocation than seeing someone day by day who lives out their own vocation with a deep spirituality, for as Jesus said: Luke 23:31 For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?" In Margaret's case , as a great saint the wood was dry, so they did not have the excuse that Margaret Mary was offending them by doing wrong things. No, what offended them was the Margaret Mary WAS DOING THINGS RIGHT. It is here I think that we can see the influence of demons, stirring the pot and directing events. The boats of these proud nuns were not anchored by prayer and so they could be driven hither and thither by the black winds of Satan. However, curiously enough what drove the haughty sisters over the edge into a black fury was not Margaret Mary but the Sacred Heart Himself!! For Jesus , in a vision told Margaret Mary that she should offer herself up for the conversion of the proud sisters . Not only this but that she was to declare this publically to the sisters themselves. This , as you can imagine , drove the already angry women into convulsions of rage. Why did Jesus do this? Why not just let poor Margaret Mary pray quietly instead of really asking her to rebuke the raging sisters and bring their wrath down on her head.? I think it was because Christ desired Margaret to mirror the life of Christ in His passion and death. She was to drink the cup that He drunk. I think that this is important in our own lives. We often somehow expect that if we follow the path of Jesus we are in for a safe , comfortable ride. But Jesus warns us that this is not so. In fact He reminds us that He was the Lamb of God and totally innocent and yet ended up on a cross. What them can we expect who follow after Him and are very, very far from totally innocent expect from the winds that sometimes Satn Himself and his demons can stir up around us..? But the opposite is true too. We must be sure to anchor ourselves in prayer so we do not get used to persecute His children.
