All of us in the nominally Christian countries are under attack by many groups of people who hate us with varying degrees of virulence. Some of us rejoice. Scripture teaches that we are “part of the Body of Christ”. So, we understand that the Body of Christ must always be mocked, scourged, and, whenever possible, crucified. If we’re smart enough to want to invest in an eternity of joy, we welcome the abuse we get, thankful to be, in at least some small way, suffering, if only financially, the same slings and arrows as the Saints.
As we are impoverished, for instance, from intentionally-induced high prices for everything we buy, and see that there are proven, common-sense solutions to these problems, we understand that their desire to hurt us has overridden their capacity to help. The better we understand, the happier we will be. We are suffering and have been given a wonderful opportunity to love our oppressors.
Most of the world’s hateful (hate-filled) people have coalesced around “Protecting the Environment”. This gives them an opportunity to attack every single person who ever does anything. Most of us have been given the intellectual gifts to understand that the exalted “Environment” is merely another idol in a long line of them. They are allowed to exist so that goats are free to separate themselves from sheep and Shepherd.
Understanding that idols unwittingly help in the self-separation of souls that God requires, we may grow in realizing that the most important problem we have is to work to save our enemies’ souls.
It is easy, for instance to despise those who worship the various idols in the Environmentalists’ Temples as we become cognizant of how much their false religion hurts everyone. Nothing they ever say is true, nothing they ever do helps. Their lies are obvious, their greed is overwhelming, and their hatred has become consuming. Their lies have taken the forms they have desired, poverty and death.
Lenin once explained that “The essence of Communism is hatred.” From the moment that The Virus first put the thought into Cain’s mind that he should kill Abel, humanity has been divided into two camps. Those who love God and truth are always attacked by those who hate both.
Why do some people hate their neighbors? Some say it’s genetic. We read in Malachi 1:2 that God loved Jacob and hated Esau. But, since Christ commanded us to love our neighbors, without distinguishing between Jacob and Esau, going down the road of genetic moral superiority quickly leads us to the damnation of racism.
One explanation is that haters are simply possessed by demons. But, those same demons also try to possess the descendants of Jacob. What keeps them out?
The Sacraments are a great help. Baptism washes away Original Sin, making it harder for demons to enter and gain control. Confirmation allows The Holy Wireless Connector to let us get through to God and vice versa.
Communion and Confession help keep us strong.
But, “doing good to those who hurt you” helps all of us to avoid the crippling hate so easy to engender and direct toward those trying to destroy us. That’s a battle we can all win, if we’re good enough.
